What you don't see

Whose job is it to promote our game?

I first noticed it earlier this year. A line of commentary emerged, asking is enough being done to promote women’s rugby? They pondered this question on their platforms as Aupiki played on. No time to spotlight emerging talent, contests for World Cup spots or unpacking how the Manawa missed their first final since the competition began.

This question obscured everything. Real storylines lost to the rhetoric. All this time spent pontificating left so many asking - where is Ruby Tui when the World Cup squad was finally announced.

They have started asking it again, this time on the eve of the Farah Palmer Cup. Which surprise! Is actually starting tomorrow. And this time Tui has been named, in the squad for the Counties Manukau Heat. So you will get to see your favourite play after all.

The only answer to this question is actually another one. Are you asking this in your newsroom? Or just using up column inches and airtime rhetorically?

Since the last World Cup, I have dedicated myself full time to telling the story of women’s rugby in this country. I write for you folks here, the Herald on Sunday, have started a podcast, created content on social media and said yes to 90% of interview requests that have come my way.

I assemble spreadsheets, DM athletes, badger NZR for more details. I keep an eye on the developments here and abroad. Putting context into the performance to try and make the action more accessible. I spend all of my time promoting women’s rugby.

I am better now at this work than I was in 2022. But I have less work lined up as I head to this World Cup. I’m funding my own way there because I know what is to come is newsworthy even if it won’t make necessarily make it’s way to the front page. Why? In part because people are asking that question in the wrong place.

And after writing that line I’m doing the tone policing thing of asking myself, is that too bitter? But I can honestly tell you I would be fine with not getting the work myself if I could see the work being done. It’s not though. Instead it feels like we’ve reverted to the old style women’s sports reporting. Telling the story of your best days, your worst days but nothing in between.

Despite that nagging voice, I can tell you I’m not being overly emotive on this. The figures from Sport New Zealand’s Media and Gender Reports are telling the same story.

We hosted and won a home World Cup and still only cracked 22% of the total rugby news that year. In the years since, despite hosting the inaugural WXV1 tournament and winning back to back gold at the last Olympics, we haven’t cracked 15%.

Worst still, it’s not just coverage that quieting down but the voices of women telling the stories. The 2024 report noting a drop in women used as sources across codes, in line with an overall decrease in women’s visibility.

This is just a sector wide issue but a personal one for me. This year should be my busiest professionally. We have the apex competition in my specialist sport, yet I’ll be honest - commissions have all but dried up and if it wasn’t for this newsletter and my column, I wouldn’t have been paid for covering rugby this year. That’s despite personally producing more content than ever before.

I say this because looking ahead, I can’t guarantee I will stay in this space. I will likely end this tournament, the biggest our sport has ever seen, out of pocket. It’s not fair to the family I am trying to build, to keep covering this sport full time without receiving full time wages. I simply can’t afford to.

So is enough being done to promote women’s rugby? No but if you’re asking that first ask yourself, what are you doing? What are you writing, talking about, reading, watching and sharing? Who are you following, supporting and consistently turning up for? We must demand the supply or production will simply cease.

With you, for now anyway,
Alice