Who is Elena Mirandola?

Profile

Women’s football is growing fast, but growth alone does not create sustainable value. For Elena Mirandola, the opportunity lies in building the game on its own terms, with sharper audience understanding, stronger identities, more deliberate commercial models and a clearer role for athletes in shaping the product.

Elena Mirandola is an internationally experienced executive with two decades in strategy consulting across EMEA and APAC, specialising in business innovation, digital transformation and media. After serving as CEO of F.C. Como Women, where she worked on the club’s repositioning, fan engagement and athlete development, she founded The Breakaway in 2025, a boutique consultancy focused on sustainable value creation in women’s sport. Through its FAIR framework, centred on fans, athletes, identity and revenue, Mirandola advises clubs, leagues, investors and brands on how to turn market momentum into long term commercial value.

Key Insights

• Women’s football should build commercial models around its own audiences, identity and strengths rather than simply replicating the men’s game.
• Sustainable value depends on stronger fan relationships, first-party data, distinctive identities and credible commercial propositions.
• Athletes can play a central role in shaping club identity, audience relationships and long-term commercial growth.

Our Exclusive Interview with Elena Mirandola

You argue that women’s sport should not be treated as a smaller version of the men’s game. Which assumptions inherited from men’s football are currently limiting the commercial potential of women’s sport the most?

The most limiting assumption is that women’s football should follow the same development path as the men’s game, simply on a smaller scale. This often leads organisations to replicate existing structures, products and commercial inventory without asking whether they actually reflect the motivations and behaviours of women’s sport audiences.

As with any consumer-facing business, customer centricity is fundamental to building a successful model. Sports organisations should start by asking who their current and potential fans are, what motivates them and what they value, and then build the proposition and narrative around those insights, rather than replicating the men’s game and assuming the audience will be the same.

There is also a significant opportunity here. Much of the commercial story of women’s football is still being written, without decades of legacy or established conventions. That gives organisations the chance to build models that are more audience-led, athlete-centred and digitally native from the outset.

Through The Breakaway, you focus on fans, athletes, identity and revenue as four interconnected growth pillars. Where do you most often see clubs getting the sequence wrong when trying to build sustainable commercial value?

Clubs often start with revenue. They look for sponsors or create commercial packages before they have properly defined their audience, identity or athlete strategy.

The right sequence is not entirely linear, because the four pillars influence one another, but commercialisation should ultimately be the outcome of a clear strategic foundation. Clubs first need to understand who they want to attract and what those people value. They then need to build a distinctive identity and define a clear role for athletes within that story.

Only then can they develop commercial propositions that are credible and differentiated. Otherwise, sponsorship tends to remain transactional (logos, hospitality and standard inventory) rather than becoming a partnership built around the club’s audience, identity and long-term growth strategy.

Women’s football is attracting more sponsors, investors and institutional attention, but growth does not automatically mean value creation. Which indicators tell you whether an organisation is genuinely building a sustainable business rather than simply benefiting from market momentum?

I would look beyond headline indicators such as social media followers, attendance peaks or the number of new sponsors.

More meaningful indicators include the proportion of identifiable fans within a CRM and the depth of data collected about them, repeat attendance, audience retention and sponsor renewal rates. More broadly, I would look at the organisation’s ability to convert interest into first-party data, direct relationships and recurring revenue.

I would also assess whether growth is supported by the right capabilities: a clear strategy, accountable leadership, appropriate investment in commercial and marketing functions, and an operating model that does not depend excessively on one individual or benefactor.

Market momentum can generate short-term visibility. Sustainable value exists when an organisation can consistently convert that visibility into stronger relationships, better products and increasingly predictable revenue.

Sustainable value exists when an organisation can consistently convert that visibility into stronger relationships, better products and increasingly predictable revenue.

Audience growth is often discussed in terms of reach, attendance and social media numbers. What do clubs still misunderstand about converting growing interest in women’s football into a deeper and more valuable relationship with fans?

There is still a tendency to treat fans as an audience to reach rather than people to understand. A social media follower, a match attendee and a committed fan are not interchangeable, and reach alone tells us very little about the strength of those relationships.

Successful consumer brands have spent decades putting the customer at the centre of their strategy, investing in understanding who they are, what they want and what drives their behaviour. I believe sports organisations should do exactly the same.

The opportunity is particularly interesting in women’s sport because the motivations for following a team, athlete or sport can be very broad. Sporting performance obviously matters, but people may also be drawn by particular athletes, a sense of community and belonging, family experiences, or the values associated with women’s sport.

Clubs therefore need to collect first-party data, segment their audiences and design different journeys for different groups. The objective is to move people progressively from awareness to participation, identification and ultimately loyalty. That requires consistent content, relevant experiences and direct communication; not simply more impressions.

You place identity at the centre of your growth model. In an increasingly crowded sports market, how should a women’s football club define a distinctive identity without relying solely on purpose driven messaging or its connection to a men’s organisation?

Purpose can be an important part of a women’s club’s identity, but it cannot be the entire identity. Messages around equality and empowerment are increasingly common and, unless they translate into distinctive behaviours and experiences, they can become difficult to differentiate.

A strong identity should emerge from the intersection of the club’s history, location, people, sporting ambition, playing style, audience and culture. Ultimately, it should answer a very practical question: why should someone choose to follow this particular team rather than women’s football in general?

Connection to a men’s club can provide reach and infrastructure, but the women’s team still needs its own recognisable voice and value proposition. I once spoke to the head of a well-known women’s team whose club name includes “19XX”, referring to the year the club was founded. But, as she pointed out, the women’s team was not founded in the early 1900s, it was established only a few years ago. The colours may be the same, but the history and the story are fundamentally different.

There is no single right answer. Manchester City Women, for example, recently launched its own brand platform. At the same time, I have spoken to clubs that deliberately do not want separate brand identities or social media channels for their women’s and men’s teams because they consider them to be two equal parts of the same club.

So it is ultimately a strategic choice for each organisation, but it needs to be made consciously rather than simply inherited.

Athletes are becoming increasingly important as media properties, storytellers and commercial assets in their own right. How should clubs rethink the relationship between the individual player brand and the institutional brand of the club?

Players (and female players in particular) are often the most human and accessible entry point into a club, particularly for new audiences. And female athletes are not only athletes: many of them are also powerful ambassadors for values, communities and causes that extend beyond the pitch.

The objective should therefore be mutual value creation. Clubs can help athletes develop their communication skills, understand their positioning and access content and commercial opportunities. In return, players can bring the club’s identity to life, reach different communities and create more personal connections with fans.

This does require a clear framework. Not every player needs or wants to become a public personality, and participation should reflect individual interests, personalities and strengths. A portfolio approach allows a club to develop different athlete profiles while ensuring that their individual stories reinforce the broader institutional brand.

This is an area I have been particularly interested in since my time as CEO of a women’s football club, and one that I continue to work on today with The Breakaway.

Having moved from strategy consulting into the CEO role at F.C. Como Women, you experienced the difference between recommending transformation and being accountable for delivering it. What did operating a football club teach you that consulting never could?

I came from consulting before joining F.C. Como Women, so my instinct has always been to approach challenges strategically, even when operating inside the club. I actually think that is important for senior leaders: they need to set the direction and think strategically without losing sight of operational reality.

But consulting teaches you to analyse complexity and recommend a direction. Operating a club teaches you that strategy only matters if the organisation can execute it with the people, time and resources actually available.

At F.C. Como Women, I experienced the constant tension between long-term transformation and ambition, and immediate operational demands. Decisions had real consequences for athletes, staff, partners and supporters, often under significant time pressure and with incomplete information.

I also learned just how important internal alignment is. A strong idea can still fail when roles are unclear, accountability is fragmented or people do not understand why change is necessary. Leadership in that environment is not only about identifying the right strategy. It is about creating the conditions for people to deliver it.

Leadership in that environment is not only about identifying the right strategy.

Investors increasingly describe women’s football as an underdeveloped growth market. What separates genuinely attractive investment opportunities from clubs or properties that simply appear inexpensive compared with the men’s game?

A low valuation does not necessarily mean that an asset is undervalued. It may simply reflect the absence of infrastructure, capabilities, audience knowledge or a credible route to revenue.

If I were assessing an investment opportunity, I would look at the quality and commitment of ownership, governance, management capabilities, sporting and commercial rights, market position, brand distinctiveness, audience potential and the level of investment required beyond the acquisition price.

I would also look very carefully at the ecosystem in which that asset operates. In the case of a football club, for example, what is the state of the league? How strong is its leadership? What level of commitment is there to developing its commercial capabilities and investing in future growth? A club cannot be assessed entirely in isolation from its wider environment.

The most attractive opportunities are those where there is a clear gap between current performance and achievable value, and where the investor has both the capabilities and the patience to close that gap.

Investors also need to be realistic about time horizons and understand the nuances of the market they are entering. Applying the assumptions and expectations of a more developed women’s football market to a European asset at a different stage of maturity can create a significant gap between expectations and reality.

Women’s football offers significant growth potential, but building a sustainable organisation requires active value creation, not simply waiting for the market to grow around it, and that requires time.

Women’s football offers significant growth potential, but building a sustainable organisation requires active value creation, not simply waiting for the market to grow around it, and that requires time.

You also teach leadership and managerial development. As women’s sport becomes more professional and commercially sophisticated, which leadership capabilities do you believe its executives will need most over the next five years?

Executives will need to combine strategic ambition with disciplined execution. Women’s sport is growing quickly, but many organisations are still operating with limited resources and relatively immature structures. Leaders therefore need to prioritise, make decisions with imperfect information, recognise which capabilities they need to build internally and when to bring in specialist expertise, and translate strategy into clear accountability.

At the same time, executives cannot afford to get lost in operational detail. Their role is to set the vision, make choices and lead with courage, particularly in an industry where many of the established models still need to be questioned.

Commercial literacy will become increasingly important, as will the ability to understand audiences, data and changing media consumption. Leaders will also need to build partnerships across sport, business, institutions and communities.

Finally, they need the confidence to challenge inherited models. Professionalisation should not mean reproducing every convention of the men’s game. The strongest leaders will preserve what makes women’s sport distinctive while building the governance, capabilities and economic discipline required for sustainable growth.

If women’s football has the opportunity to design parts of its commercial model differently from the men’s game, what should it deliberately avoid copying and what should it build from scratch?

Women’s football should avoid copying an overreliance on physical sponsorship inventory and visibility metrics, where quantity of exposure can sometimes take precedence over the quality of the relationship.

It should also be cautious about building business models that depend too heavily on media rights as the primary engine of growth. At this stage of the market’s development, maximising short-term media revenues may not always be the best strategic choice. In some cases, prioritising reach and accessibility (through free-to-air broadcasting or more innovative distribution models) can help build awareness, audience and long-term value.

One interesting example I have recently come across is a league planning to distribute half of its matches directly through the social media channels of its players, clubs and the league itself. Models like this may not maximise immediate rights revenue, but they can significantly broaden distribution and help build traction around the product.

I would also challenge the idea of treating athletes as interchangeable sporting assets. Of course technical ability comes first, but clubs should also consider how players fit with the culture and identity they are trying to build. Athletes can play an important role in shaping the personality, relevance and reach of a women’s team.

What women’s football can build from scratch is a model grounded in first-party fan relationships, flexible media distribution, meaningful athlete participation and partnerships designed to solve genuine business or social challenges for brands.

It can also design matchday experiences, content and products around a broader and more diverse audience from the outset, rather than adapting formats originally designed for someone else.

The goal is not to reject everything that exists in the men’s game. It is to make deliberate choices: adopt what works, question what does not, and build around the specific strengths and opportunities of women’s football.

FAQ

Who is Elena Mirandola?

Elena Mirandola is an internationally experienced executive with two decades in strategy consulting across EMEA and APAC, specialising in business innovation, digital transformation and media.

What is The Breakaway?

The Breakaway is a boutique consultancy focused on sustainable value creation in women’s sport.

What are the four pillars of The Breakaway’s FAIR framework?

The FAIR framework is centred on fans, athletes, identity and revenue.