As we lead into the Paris Olympics and the nation anxiously awaits the Matildas first game, Lori Susko, director and co-founder of we scout has been reflecting on her time working with women in sport, particularly those sports that are often male-dominated. In this op-ed Susko dives into her experience working on the NRL for over a decade and how the media and marketing around women’s sports have changed so astronimically in the wake of the Matildas’ World Cup glory.
Thanks to the impact of the Matilda’s, we’re now in a new dawn. We are seeing national recognition, sell-out crowds and mainstream media representation across women and their participation in all sports.
My career has seen me work alongside the National Rugby League for over a decade, I have also been lucky enough to work across other sports including football – with the Football Legacy program alongside Football NSW and Northern NSW, horse racing including Magic Millions and the Melbourne Cup, polo and more.
I’ve seen first-hand the effort these brands and sporting institutions put in to ensure their female players are just as well represented as men, however when it came to my job telling their story in the media – we certainly fell short compared to their male counterparts. That is until recently.
I worked on my first Women in League round and Magic Millions Racing Carnival in 2008 – a very different time when it came to telling the story of female athletes. I worked alongside trailblazing women like Katie Page-Harvey who stopped at nothing to ensure women in sport were at the forefront of everything we did. However, our challenge lay in getting the media attention for these women and their role in their respective sports. We would often have to partner these talented women with high-profile men, just to get them the media coverage they so rightfully deserved.
In 2015, we saw Michelle Payne cement herself as the first woman to win the Melbourne Cup, the following year Magic Millions launched for the first time their Polo arm, which focused on mixed teams including Francesca Cumani and Zara Tindall. Working alongside these talented women was when I started to witness a new wave of recognition for females being represented in male-dominated sports, particularly across our media.
Fast forward to the past few years and I’ve had the opportunity to work alongside Football NSW and Northern NSW Football on the government grant of the Football Legacy Program. The objective of this grant was to provide more opportunities for women and girls in soccer.
Off the back of the Matildas playing at the FIFA World Cup and the tsunami of coverage for these talented women, we saw firsthand the impact this attention had on grassroots football. Football NSW alone saw a 149% increase in registrations for their summer football program, with an increase of 32% in female players registering for the winter season – this broke all previous records.
We’ve also just finished working on the AMPOL Women’s State of Origin – a series that dates back to 1999. This year the series moved to three games for the first time – it means that the women’s series is now on par with the men. To say the tide has turned is an understatement.
We saw commentary in mainstream media that talked to the athletic skill of those on the field and the quality of sport they were playing. We saw the media calling Jamie Chapman’s solo try one of the great Origin tries in history and we saw record-breaking TV numbers and stadium sell-outs.
And as we walk into the Olympics in less than two weeks, I have no doubt that our female athletes will now see the same airtime as the men and after many years working in sport, I am so damn glad that we are finally here.
