There were some big stories this week! First, after Rebecca Sowden’s, it turns out timely, blog last week about the silence in the commercial world in regards to women’s sport, it was revealed this week that despite promising noises in the lead up to their launch and approaching all the key businesses, the Wellington Phoenix haven’t been able to sign a commercial partner for the women’s team. This seems ludicrous given the points outlined by Rebecca about the three big women’s sport events coming up, the 1 billion people that watched the 2019 world cup, that women’s sport is the fastest growing in Aotearoa, the surge in numbers that always follows a world cup, and the players in the Wellington Phoenix are our local, visible players of the world cup. How many more reasons could a commercial partner possibly need?
Speaking of the Football Ferns and the world cup, they played this week but I felt the coverage was lacking. The Football Ferns played Olympic gold medallists Canada on Sunday morning, at the same time the All Blacks played the U.S. which meant that while there was great coverage by the likes of Stuff, NZME radio only talked about one team on the hourly sports news and it wasn’t the Ferns. Sky Sport had a $10 pass for the Ferns game which was awesome, but used a photo of the All Whites in the accompanying graphic on social media because it hadn’t been updated from the same deal they ran for the All Whites a couple of weeks ago. Sky also had no half time show and had two male commentators. While Andrew Dewhurst and Harry Ngata obviously know their stuff, with all the Aotearoa-based Ferns players and staff in Aotearoa, surely it was a good opportunity to include them in the coverage. Unfortunately the coverage for the Wednesday game was much the same plus instead of a half time show it was the highlights of an England vs France men’s rugby match! At least on Sunday it was highlights of the All Whites game at half time. It would have been an opportune moment to show the highlights of the Australia v Brazil women’s football match played the night before for both matches.
Another top story this week was that of Australian footballer Josh Cavallo, who announced that he is gay via a professional video on his team Adelaide United’s Twitter account and a statement on his personal account. It was a nice touch from his team being involved in his announcement to show their support. There have been some comments that this should not be a big deal, but while he remains the only known current male top-flight professional athlete in Australasia to be out, this is still a brave move and a big deal. Like Andy Brennan, a former Australian footballer who announced he was gay in 2019, I look forward to the day when we don’t need to be ‘brave’ to be out.
Gymnastics NZ are finally setting up their steering committee to action the recommendations from their review released in February. After a long delay, there has been a slight change with most of the committee to be made up of gymnasts who are survivors, along with a human rights specialist and a child and youth specialist. The organisation has appointed MartinJenkins to appoint the committee members, and a call has gone out for expressions of interest. This is an interesting move and different from other national sports organisations who have always had internal staff and/or board members involved.
I was really interested to read this week’s article ‘The ballerina who found her mighty cycling legs‘, the second in a two-article series from Lockerroom called Out into the Open, focusing on wellbeing. This article focuses on body image and highly resonated with me. It profiles cyclist Olivia Ray and her journey on discovering, accepting and then developing her body literally to its strengths. I have always been heavy for my size and height due to carrying a high percentage of muscle, however, that means, as the GP at uni recently bluntly pointed out to me, my BMI is usually “overweight”, even though I am not. Being able to say that and talk about this is something I have long struggled with and has had an impact on my body self-image. This started to change a couple of years ago after a conversation with a close friend who commented that they saw my body as “strong”. Being strong means I can do things like play football and roller skate and practice yoga. Being strong also means having thighs and calves, which I’m learning is a good thing! Here’s to mighty legs and empowering different shapes and sizes!
This week in herstory, the Government Service Equal Pay Act was introduced in 1960, with the private sector not following until 1972. Despite this legislation the gender and ethnic pay gap still exists. And this week in 2014, the police announced they wouldn’t be laying charges against the three men who called themselves “roast busters” who posted videos online bragging about coercing underaged girls to get drunk to have sex with them. They were finally charged in December 2020.
Check out all the media headlines in women’s sport for the week of 29th October right here.
Alida Shanks 