This week, I found myself wondering, is this what it feels like to be a man who loves sport? To be able to switch on the tv so many times this week and see my people playing sport. And so many sports and so many matches! It’s been awesome! I have watched the cricket world cup with the White Ferns play their hearts out against Australia, South Africa and England. I have watched Super Rugby Aupiki matches, (some scheduled at the same time as the cricket…) which has been exciting, passionate rugby. And in the U.S the National Women’s Soccer League kicked off over the weekend with their preseason cup tournament. All the NWSL matches are streamed live on Twitch, so I was able to watch Angel City FC play San Diego Waves, both new teams to the league, both pioneering women’s football with women-player-centric organisation structures and philosophies, innovative commercial models, and women in the head coach roles. Angel City FC have pre-sold 16,000 season passes and have earned $USD35 million in sponsorship, much more than any other NWSL team. And they only played their first game today!
While the NWSL is just starting, the competitions in Aotearoa are short lived. Super Rugby Aupiki just two rounds compared to the men’s 15 rounds + finals. The White Ferns play one more match against Pakistan this Saturday. While as a fan it seems like a very short time, I do want to acknowledge the huge sacrfice and dedication by the players and staff for both Aupiki and the cricket world cup, to be in camp, training and playing the matches, navigating time off work, away from families, Covid-19, as well as actually playing!
Watching women’s sport has given me a taste of what we’ve been missing and why it is such a big deal that there is so little televised women’s sport. I have loved watching women’s rugby and cricket, maybe because as a women watching women’s sport and “seeing myself”. But also the energy, the competitiveness, and the quality from the teams is immense and the women look like they love being there, they are clearly having fun. Novel in high performance sport maybe, but so important. It might still be a rebel yell, but I want more!
While it has been exciting, I am also reminded just how far we have to go, not only because this deluge of women’s sport is for such a short time, but because of a nasty incident in Australian sports media this week. Briefly, because I don’t want to focus on them, a male AFL coach had a heated exchange with a male journalist, the coach apologised the next day, but meantime two videos of the male journalist surfaced with audio that was explicitly misogynist, racist and homophobic, one specifically about a women colleague of his.
The comments about his colleague were shared in a group chat, some time ago, yet this is the first that it’s been made public. Following the release of the videos, there were many women who commented on social media and in articles on the horrendous behaviour in this instance but that it’s not isolated, that this is what is frequently faced in daily lives in sports media, and it’s not good enough, there needs to be more action to address these attitudes. What was glaringly obvious was how very few men commented and called out this behaviour. Siren’s Kirby Fenwick wrote an excellent article about the need for more male allies, and Marnie Vinall pointed out the men behaved badly but a woman paid the price, with the colleague on the receiving end of very public slurs about her sexuality and her appearance having no voice in the whole situation.
ABC’s football journalist Samantha Lewis summed it up nicely:
Let’s challenge the status quo Samantha talks about. That’s why I’m supporting the likes of Angel City FC. I’m loving what they’re doing, on and off the field. What they are doing is innovative, it is different, it is brave, and it is working. And it fosters equity for women’s football and a sense of belonging, for the players, coaches, administrators, commercial partners, and fans alike.
For all the headlines on diversity, equity, and inclusion in the media this week, check out HerStory.
Alida Shanks 