Mustard | Aston Villa Women: 23% Match-Day Sales Growth

How Aston Villa Women Grew Match-Day Sales by 23% Across a Full Season.

Date

2026

Deliverables

Stategy

Paid Media

Campaigns

Location

Birmingham

Sector

Sports

Aston Villa Women grew match-day sales by 23% across a full season. By stopping showing football. The audience the club needed to grow was looking for a social experience, a community, and a night out that happened to involve football. The insight that drove one of the club's most significant commercial results was the recognition of that reality. When the creative strategy shifted to reflect it, so did the results.

The results

23%

YoY uplift in match-day sales across a full season

First ever

TikTok-first campaign in the club's history

60,000+

TikTok followers built during the campaign

the challenge

Women's football in England is growing fast. The clubs growing fastest share a common characteristic: they have stopped marketing the game and started marketing the experience of being there. Aston Villa Women had the product: a competitive team in a growing league, a welcoming atmosphere, a genuinely accessible match day. What the club did not have was a marketing approach that communicated any of that to the audience most likely to come and stay.

The existing campaign was built around the game: clips, results, league position. Content that engaged the existing fanbase but did not reach the adjacent audience (the young women, the social groups, the families) who were the club's most significant growth opportunity.

the approach

Our analysis pointed consistently in one direction. The audiences with the highest growth potential for Aston Villa Women were motivated by the social and experiential dimensions of attending: the atmosphere, the community and the feeling of being part of something, secondary to the sporting results.

We recommended a TikTok-first creative strategy, the first in club history. Content was built around the experience of being there: the matchday atmosphere, the crowd, the community. Creator partnerships were used to extend reach into social communities adjacent to the club's existing fanbase.

The content contextualised the sport making the game the reason to come, but the experience the reason to stay and return.

A 23% uplift in match-day sales across a full season is a structural result, not a one-match spike. It reflects a shift in who was coming to games, driven by a campaign that reached a new audience and gave them a reason to become part of the community.

The TikTok growth (from zero to 60,000+ followers during the campaign) was both a result and a mechanism. Each new follower was a potential matchday buyer who had encountered the club through content that reflected their own social identity and interests.

We're really proud of the outstanding results from our 2023/24 season ticket campaign, thanks to the strategic guidance and media plan support from Mustard Media. Working with their team has been a great experience, enabling us to shift our mindset and adopt innovative approaches to attract a new audience. Leaning on their expertise together we've redefined our positioning, messaging, content, and audience targeting. Additionally, we've seen success with match-by-match ticket sales achieving a record attendance at Villa Park during the 2023/24 campaign. The valuable lessons learned from this campaign and throughout the season will have a lasting impact on our future endeavours.

Gavin Forbes

Senior Marketing Manager

What This Means for Sports Brands

The Festivalisation of Sports™ thesis is visible in the Aston Villa Women campaign. The audiences sports organisations most need to grow are making their decisions the same way festival audiences do in that they want to know what it feels like to be there before they commit.

Clubs and leagues that lead with on-pitch content to grow these audiences will continue to miss the mark. They will resonate with content full of people who look like them, in a stadium that sounds welcoming, telling them about the best Saturday they had recently.

If your current match day content strategy would only interest someone already attending games, it is not growing your audience. The goal is to make someone who has never been think the content was made for them.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: How do sports clubs grow match attendance?

Festivalise the experience and market the atmosphere, not the sport. Aston Villa Women grew match-day sales by 23% by shifting to TikTok-first, creator-led content that showed what it felt like to be at a game. The audience they needed to reach was making entertainment choices, not following the league.

Q: What is the Festivalisation of Sports?

Festivalisation of Sports™ is applying experience-economy thinking to sports audience development. It recognises that growing sports audiences, particularly younger and non-traditional fans, requires marketing the experience of being there rather than the quality of the sport. Aston Villa Women's 23% match-day sales growth was built on this principle.

Q: Does TikTok work for sports marketing?

Yes, when the content is built for TikTok rather than repurposed from elsewhere. Aston Villa Women's TikTok-first strategy built 60,000+ followers and drove a 23% uplift in match-day sales by creating content around the matchday experience and atmosphere. The platform rewards authenticity and community-building over broadcast-style content.

Q: How do you grow women's sports audiences?

Show the experience, not the sport. The highest-growth audience segment for women's football is people who are open to attending but have not yet been, and they are making an active choice between multiple entertainment options. The campaign needs to show them what it feels like to be there.