Peppa Pig and the Lionesses isn’t the most obvious pairing. One’s a muddy-puddle-loving pig loved by my kids and toddlers everywhere and the other is England’s women’s national football team, equally loved by my kids after their heroics in 2025.
But when you take a deeper look behind the Football Association and Hasbro deal, it starts to make perfect sense and tells us a lot about the power of partnerships.
The new character, Libby Lioness, will join the Peppa Pig universe ahead of the 2027 Women’s World Cup and is to be voiced by former England international Jill Scott. What’s more, the partnership will extend into YouTube content, toys, clothing and sporting accessories.
It’s a brilliant way to bring the world of football into children’s lives, particularly girls’. It also shows how brands, broadcasters and the whole entertainment industry can play a role in building the next generation of fans.
Women’s sport in the UK hit a record 397m viewing hours in 2025, according to the Women’s Sport Trust. Deloitte also predicts global revenues in women’s sports will reach at least £2.2bn for the first time in 2026, up 25 per cent in a year. The growth of viewers means more brands are interested in sponsorship opportunities.
The commercial value is clear, but the biggest lesson for brands right now is not to wait until tournaments start to get in on the action.
Peppa ultras and football fans offered a route into the other
As the FA and Hasbro deal indicates, partnerships between women’s sports and brands should find ways to bring the game into everyday culture long before the first whistle blows. This helps generate momentum in fan audiences, building communities that converge around the sport at every level, without relying on live games to drum up a dedicated base.
People discover players through social media, follow their lives off-season, and rewatch match highlights on YouTube. This means that, for younger audiences, the relationship with sport can start well before they ever sit down to watch a full game.
Any brand can put its logo on a shirt or buy an ad slot around a fixture. But Hasbro shows brands that they can help tell the stories, create the content and build the experiences that make people care in the first place and, importantly, bring women’s football into conversations it might not reach otherwise.
My toddler doesn’t need to understand the offside rule to enjoy a story about a football character. And, since many parents are forced to watch Peppa Pig, combining the two makes football a shared family experience.
There are other great examples too, like when Google Pixel partnered with the FA to launch Pixel FC at the last Women’s World Cup. A group of women’s football creators and presenters made critical moments in the tournament accessible and opened up opportunities for girls and women in the game.
The best partnerships happen when two worlds with already strong narratives — in this case, Peppa ultras and football fans — give each a route into the other.
It’s a reminder that there’s no one way into women’s sport. Sometimes, it starts with a world-class performance. Sometimes it’s a player sharing a glimpse of life behind the scenes. And sometimes it’s a cartoon pig pulling on a football shirt.
Sam Bird is SVP, Sport & Entertainment at WPP Media.