"It's normal for them to earn less", "A woman's place is not on the football field". In Brazil, it's still common to hear this kind of comments, but no one can imagine what it's like for women to try to live from this dream: the dream of living playing football. For that, a lot of investment is needed. So yes. It's like they play uphill compared to the structure that exists for men's football. And it is to highlight this that Puma created this idea.

We developed an inclined court, a football field 2.2m high at the highest point. We invited men’s teams so that they could feel firsthand how women players feel when they enter the field. And more than that: we wanted to draw attention to the gap in resources that exists in Brazilian football.

The strategy consisted of creating an unprecedented structure, which represented, in an unusual way, a real problem among female football players in the country. We developed a court with 4.5 degrees of slope. An inclination which was possible to play on, but still showing the difficulty women feel with less investment. With everything ready, we invited men's football teams to play on the court, as well as Puma influencers linked to the sport to follow everything. Among them, the left-back of the Brazilian team, Tamires Dias. We captured people's reactions, the difficulty of playing there and shared everything on Puma's and influencers’ social media. From this, we had reverberation by spontaneous media and PR, drawing the attention of an enormous number of people interested in this subject.

On a football court located in a high-traffic area in São Paulo (Arena Soccer Grass), we installed a metal structure with an inclination of 4.5 degrees. Thus, on the lower side, the court had 30 cm. Gradually, it got higher until it reached eight feet at the highest point: 2,2 meters. On this structure we placed the grass, the goals and drew the marking lines. There were 5 days of action in total, where we had the presence of players, influencers and the general public.

The Unlevel Playing Field is just one of several projects that Puma does to bring attention to this subject. All of them are part of the She Moves Us platform that reaches 57M impressions per year. Our most impressive result is that now Puma became the first brand in Brazil to sponsor all the players of a women's team. Something never seen here. The team chosen was Palmeiras, one of the major football teams in the world. We had more than 123 Million and more than U$1 Million in earned media. The gap between men’s and women’s football is still distant, but we believe that this is just the beginning to decrease this climb.