Part two: What's the score, 2024?
Recap continues as we wrap the events of 2024
Picking up where we left off last week, we are into the second half! Here’s my wrap of the final six months of 2024.
July - Women win gold and fuck all of the coverage
Women won the majority of our medals in Paris. Dominating on the water, the cycle track and the rugby field. I loved every second of the midnight watches curated for me by the team at WOMENZSPORTS. It was while I was still on the high of our wāhine sporting excellence that a shitty I told you so landed.
The latest report into Media and Gender showed we had slid backwards from the high of 28% of sports coverage in 2022. In 2023, just 26% of sports news covered women. TRASH! We may receive a little bump in coverage in 2024 due to the Olympic success but overall cuts in the media across Aotearoa this year, have had a real impact on what stories we tell.
Stuff has just casually dissolved their Women in Sport section and now have no women sports writers on staff. The Herald have me via my columns in the Herald on Sunday and one other women in their sport room. So it’s not just the stories but whose telling them that needs work.
My highlight:
The Black Ferns 7s winning our country's first gold in Paris. Their repeated success led to the recent announcement that the Black Ferns 7s will receive more funding in the next cycle than the All Black 7s. It’s the first time I recall women getting more money than men in rugby. Just need that to happen for another 155 years to become equal.
Still thinking about:
Olympic politics. Athletes from Belarus and Russia were not be able to compete for their country in Paris. They could only attend as neutral individuals given their country's involvement in the invasion of Ukraine. And yet, Israel was welcomed into the Olympic village despite the International Court of Justice finding their continued presence in Palestine is unlawful.
This double standard makes a mockery of the Olympic Truce. The commitment made at the United Nations each Olympic cycle to protect the interest of sport and promote peace. The weight of this commitment is now looking increasingly flimsy. Particularly after the United Nations found there were reasonable grounds to believe that Israel is currently committing a genocide.
Link for more: Forget the truce, this is the true Olympic spirit on display. I don’t know how Shiray Kaka was so openly joyful on the sideline after her own personal disappointment. She is a true champion.
August - Ilona emerges but where’s Kelly?
Ilona Maher first emerged as a Tiktok star during the 2020 Olympic Games. Her behind the scenes content exploded in popularity as Covid kept fans away from the main event. The charismatic star, shone even brighter four years on as her team’s bronze medal performance has turned her to solid gold.
Can we please actually take a minute to acknowledge how hard it is to be both a social media superstar and an Olympic medal winning athlete? Most people only get to be good at one of those things. Anyone that rights off her social media content as a frivolous distraction must not understand how marketing works in the year 2024. Or the economic reality of women in sports.
It can be jarring to have a single star emerge from a team sport but Maher is a great gateway player for new fans. She represents the physicality, the cheekiness and the empowerment that I love about our game. I am stoked to have her as our ambassador.
But just as Maher’s star was looming large, in the wake of the games I was asking where’s Kelly Brazier? We were celebrating the retirement of her teammates, Portia Woodman-Wickliffe and Tyla King, but Kelly was just… gone?
I am a player of a certain vintage so I take that lack of reporting personally. For all the progress here in Aotearoa, we are still unevenly applying our attention when it comes to coverage of the stars of our sport. We would never treat the sidelining of an All Black with her CV with such disinterest.
My highlight:
My highlight therefore was when I slid into the DMs of one of my rugby idols and Kelly said yes to speaking to me. It’s been a joy to see her tick off one of the goals she identified to me in that chat, time will tell if she will achieve the other.
Still thinking about:
How social media has been the key to unlocking the potential of women in sports. Ilona Maher, Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese, Ruby Tui, Sam Kerr, the Matildas as a whole, all examples of social media levelling up the profile of both the player and the sport.
Heck, I’m only writing right now because of the opportunities social media provided. I spent all of my 20s applying for jobs in rugby and they didn’t want a bar of me. Well, now they all have to hear what I think!
Link for more: Speaking of, I had a chat in June with the lovely Daz from The Good Day Matrix. We covered all that I think is necessary to get us over the advantage line.
September - All women owned, coaches and managed
My friends bought a basketball team. Which is a very fun sentence to write and repeat out loud. Taking ownership just 18 days before tip off of season 3, it’s been fascinating to see all these women put their money where their mouth is.
The team did well on the court, securing their first ever home semi final. They did even better off it, supporting their captain to say TOITŪ TE TIRITI on their social media platforms.
My highlight:
Wellington Rugby reached out to ask me to be the ground announcer of the Pride semi final against the Otago Spirit. It was an honour to be asked to bring the hype to my old team.
There was a beautiful symmetry to the ask. My debut match for the Pride, 10 years earlier, had been against Otago. Unfortunately that symmetry held in the result too! We lost to Otago in my debut match and were upset in this semi final by the Southerners.
Still thinking about:
Transitions as an athlete and what it is we can bring to the next phase. We talk a lot about this in the context of players going into coaching or commentary. It is still a very new conversation when it comes to ownership. It is a thread I will pick up in the new year with the Kāhu about what this group of former athletes have learnt from their first season running the show.
Link for more: Another episode of my podcast this year that I really enjoyed was my conversation with Di Jordan. This field hockey legend played in NZ first masters side at 35 and has aged up with the programme!
October - Win some, lose some
Two teams nobody had given a shot won big. First the Irish knocked off the Black Ferns in the WXV, with TAB odds that would have won you a house deposit. Then the White Ferns shook off 10 losses in a row to end up lifting the T20 World Cup.
I’ve written the Irish loss to death but since then it’s interesting to note that Mike Delaney has moved on from the Black Ferns coaching team. He was in charge of the Black Ferns attack so it will be interesting to see if there is a noticeable shift in the New Year.
As for the White Ferns can we let them play test cricket already??? It’s like if we only let the Black Ferns play 7s and not 15s (which I heard we were very close to doing back in 2010). The skillset of Sophie Devine, Suzie Bates and Lea Tahuhu is built for test cricket. I want to see them play it at least once before they retire.
My highlight:
My friend, Traci Houpapa, invited me to speak on a panel at Huihuinga Wahine. This is the Federation of Māori Authorities annual wāhine Māori leadership summit. She’d put me on a panel with Linda Munn, Māori activist and last living designer of the Tino Rangatiratanga flag and Heni Unwin, an epic Māori scientist to talk about Tino Rangitiratanga.
I was shitting myself tbh. What did I have to add to a room full of Māori excellence?
Well, I must have done alright as one of the Aunties in attendance asked if I was single cause they have a queer niece. And better still, Linda called me “fucking awesome” and in that moment I felt it.
Still thinking about:
Ruck speed. The Black Ferns play best with pace off the base. The only match during the WXV where the majority of our rucks were less than 3 seconds? France. And what do you know, that’s the game we won.
Link for more: TVNZ have dropped a new series about the whakapapa of New Zealand Cricket. Check out this first episode looking at the Rose Bowl, a one day series played between New Zealand and Australia women’s teams.
November - Politics crashes back into sports
Tens of thousands of people marched around the motu and to Parliament in our country’s biggest ever protest.
In it’s wake is the reckoning sports needs to have with it’s Māori washing. We will give leagues and teams Māori names. We sell jerseys and kit covered in Māori designs. We will theme team campaigns around Māori ideas and Māori figures. We’ve finally learnt to sing our anthem in both Te Reo and English. We’ll hear mihi in our opening broadcasts and debate on which haka the All Black will deploy.
We will wrap everything up in Māoritanga and then when it’s time to stand in solidarity, sports falls over. Sort it out!
My highlight:
Hana Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke ripping the that bill perfectly in two.
Still thinking about:
The events and commentary around it were revealing of just how segregated parts of our society can be. This was most evident in the airing of some particularly backwards ideas about haka and it’s use.
I have had the privilege to learn and perform haka. Both in a sport setting and in my personal life. I can tell you, no one out there is full on free styling. You learn the words, both in Te Reo obviously and what they mean in English. The actions are then physical interpretations of these words. You learn all this and then you practice, practice, practice. This seeding of the idea of a haka “surprise” pulled on teammates, is therefore a complete fiction.
I have also been on the receiving end of a haka. One performed to me as a sign of respect and ones laid down as a challenge. Both left me feeling fully charged not fearful. That our houses of parliament see a haka and decide it “cannot be considered anything other than disorderly." is a farce. This is the same house that does nothing when a member allegedly calls those sitting opposite “a stupid bitch”. Be so for real right now. Only one of those actions is an outright sign of disrespect.
Link for more: I happened to record this podcast with
December - Year ends but questions linger
The women’s sports year ends having smashed another whole set of records. Not even the lack of resources, coverage and rampant misogny spend can slow us down.
We have shattered expectations again and again which leads me to ask - why are we continuing to set them? Who is drawing these lines? What would the sporting world look like if we threw that all away?
I love women’s sport because of it’s cultural differences but wouldn’t all sports be better off if it was a little bit more like us?
As I ask all these questions, a book has made it’s way to me here in the bottom of the world. Open Play: The Case for Feminist Sport by Sheree Bekker and Stephen Mumford will be formally released at the beginning of next year. I have only read the preface but my brain is whirring with possibilities and purring with I told you sos.
As it currently stands, the world of women’s sports is lonely by design. So I appreciate those that have reached across the internet, codes and countries to share with me this year.
My highlight:
Making it through another year of self employment while the media industry has crumbled around me. This is thanks in no small part to you my lovely readers and in particular, those that pay so we can all enjoy my stream of consciousness.
Our WOMENZSPORTS small team of three, managed to win Best Sports Podcast at the New Zealand Podcast awards. And we recently found out we’ve been named on a global shortlist for best sports talk podcast alongside Taylor Swift’s boyfriend.
Still thinking about:
How I’m actually going to get myself over to England for the Rugby World Cup. If you have any leads for work - do let me know! Our New Zealand dollar being worth about 45 pence means this will not be a cheap trip.
Link for more: Did you know New Zealand Rugby League has made a submission against the Treaty Principles Bill? They are doing the absolute most to get me to switch codes.
So that’s all from me this year. My deepest thank you to all of you who have read, subscribed and shared my work this year. A special shoutout to my paid subscribers, your contribution has been a gift to us all as it enables me to put these stories in front of people.
Wishing you all the best this holiday season and I will see you in the New Year World Cup year!
With you,
Alice
PS. Join New Zealand Rugby League and make your submission against the Treaty Principles Bill by 7 January! You do not have to be a resident of Aotearoa to think this is divisive rubbish and to tell the select committee so.