Bauer-Hearst Media general manager Marina Go disrupts NRL boards, championing skills-based and gender diversity, to tackle problems plaguing Rugby League, in a strategic play to make it the most respected and greatest game of all.

“Transformation begins with a disruption to the status quo,” Go told the audience at Daze of Disruption conference in Sydney this morning.

To understand how fans today are consuming the game in a digital media world, where mobile usage exceeds desktop, requires digital knowledge at the leadership level to engage and entertain consumers in a disrupted environment.

With more than 90 per cent of NRL  fans currently watching the live game on television, and the associated broadcasting rights representing a major revenue source for the NRL, changing customer viewing consumption shifting towards smart phone usage is clearly a crisis.

Go stresses having a skills-based board with independent directors who have a digital background will be well equipped to understand the urgency of the impeding financial risk and how to address this with innovation.

As a publisher, Go brings an understanding on how to use media to drive positive attitudes and has the knowledge to “bring the right content at the right time,” to engage with customers, especially in widening the audience and getting more women involved than ever before.

Go said the diverse thinking a board gains with skills-based leadership “is a big departure from the status quo with much resistance from some of the old guard, but not all”.  Go said,  “Chairmen like Souths Nick Pappas and The Cowboys Laurence Lancini are embracing change” and progressive thinking, however “it’s a long way to go,” she said.