It’s been a decade since Sport England’s seminal campaign This Girl Can first graced our screens. Created in response to startling research on the fitness gender gap – which revealed that two million fewer women than men were playing sport regularly in the UK – it offered a refreshingly honest portrayal of exercise, depicting women of varying ages and body types looking sweaty, red-faced, and happy. Ten years on, and This Girl Can has inspired millions of women and girls across the country to get active, but beyond its individual impact it’s clear that the tectonic plates of the wider sports world are shifting dramatically.

Spurred on by the success of England’s Lionesses, women’s football has seen a 56% increase in participation among women and girls over the last five years. The same goes for the growing level of fandom around women’s sports, which boasted their highest ever viewership levels in the UK last year as access to watching games is democratised by the internet. They’re also an increasingly attractive financial proposition, with four in five brand decision makers suggesting they are likely to invest in women’s sport sponsorship in the next three years.

“It feels like the flip has switched and the conversation has changed from, ‘is this viable?’ to ‘how do we avoid getting left behind?’” says Holly Gilbertson, founder and managing partner at sports-specialist agency Pacer, who’s already worked with brands including adidas since launching last year. “I think investment is definitely one thing, but that ideological shift for me is what’s most exciting. There’s this cultural infectiousness around women’s sport at the minute, I think everybody wants to be part of it.”