changing room
A surge in the number of Kiwi viewers watching women’s sport underpins Sky’s new commitment, See the Possible, to do more to highlight and support Kiwi women in sport.
New Zealanders, you have proven that you can destroy myths.
That tired old saying, “Nobody watches women’s sports”? You just blew it out of the water. And Sky has the numbers to back it up.
In a week last month, at the height of the Cricket World Cup here in New Zealand, women’s sport accounted for 67 per cent of total viewing hours of Sky Sport’s top 50 live events broadcast on Sky Box and Sky Go.
And 14 of the top 20 rating slots on Sky Box were women’s sports – that was also almost 40 percent of all top 50 streams on Sky Sport Now.
That, says Sky boss Sophie Moloney, is hundreds of thousands of viewer hours of cricket, rugby, netball, martial arts, soccer, league, golf, squash and women’s AFLW.
Some of those hours were spent watching landmark events for women in sport: the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup, the inaugural Super Rugby Aupiki and Netball’s ANZ Premiership, which this year celebrates 25 years of elite netball in New Zealand. And there are more to come, such as next year’s FIFA Women’s World Cup, which will be hosted here for the first time.
Moloney is thrilled to see these powerful stats just as Sky launches See the Possible – more of a commitment than a campaign to do even more to highlight and support women’s sport both on and off screen.
The idea is to ensure that young women can “see what they can do” – whether they play in sport or work, and the routes to get there.
Moloney tells a charming story before she became Sky boss, how she went to the Black Caps games with her two sons in her hometown of Nelson.
“It was 2019 and we took our boys to Saxton Oval to meet the players. They got their hats signed and had a good time,” she says. “The next morning I could hear them watching cricket, cheering and commenting on the game.
“And in my prejudice I assumed they were watching men play. But it was the women’s Big Bash League.
“I was super impressed at that moment that this is about it. As long as we’re doing it side by side, broadcasting the women’s sport, treating it no less than the men and celebrating it, then the audience is there. It’s vital that we don’t disrupt that.”
Check out the possible artwork with the Wellington Phoenix Women.
The See the Possible ethos grew out of a long conversation, Moloney says – through lockdowns and Covid-impacted sporting seasons – about Sky’s role in “celebrating our Wāhine Toa”.
“Actually, we have been fulfilling our role as a broadcaster of women’s sports for a long time, but I don’t think that we would necessarily put it in a framework that one could then easily talk about,” she says.
“This isn’t just about a campaign, it’s an ongoing opportunity for Sky to play our role as a talent showcase platform. But more importantly to me, I want it to be part of a broader ecosystem of like-minded people such as [Sport NZ CEO] Castle Raelene u [Women in Sport Aotearoa CEO] Rachel Froggatt to talk about how we can approach this consciously.
“Especially at a time when we have a phenomenal amount of women’s sport on the calendar. It’s an ongoing conversation – and that’s just the beginning.”
Moloney has no doubt that there is a demand to watch women play sports. Sky Sport Now, the broadcaster’s standalone sports streaming app, covers more than 50 sports, and unsurprisingly almost 40 per cent of its youngest viewers were women’s sports.
“It’s said that when it’s there, people want to consume it. The digital possibility means that other target groups can also consume this sport,” she says.
Sky boss Sophie Moloney. Photo: sky.
Sky also wants to make women’s sport more accessible to the public – without devaluing it. It will now think more about its free-to-air sports strategy, says Moloney.
“We have recommitted ourselves with partners to free-to-air esports, as we did with TVNZ for the Tokyo Olympics and State of Origin on Discovery NZ,” she says.
“And we’ve been very careful to make a lot of sports content available on Prime – particularly White Ferns games during the Cricket World Cup. The Beijing Winter Olympics also had phenomenal viewership on Prime.
“We will continue to work with other broadcasters where it makes sense. But that doesn’t mean that we want to make all women’s sports freely available. It’s way too valuable.”
Moloney wants to see more in-depth stories about the women we see on screens and those who work behind them. That means more interviews, shows and panel discussions all about women in sport. And more women asking the questions and producing these shows.
For last year’s Olympics coverage, Sky had a four-person presenting team in Tokyo – Storm Purvis, Rikki Swannell, Kirstie Stanway and Kristina Eddy. The channel aims to develop more female talent to commentate on rugby, netball, basketball and football this year.
The Sky Tokyo Olympic crew (from left): Kirstie Stanway, Storm Purvis, Rikki Swannell and Kristina Eddy. Photo: sky
Sky has developed a number of partnerships with female athletes, sports associations and organizations in recent years – such as the Black Ferns and Farah Palmer Cup, the Silver Ferns and ANZ Premiership, Basketball NZ and the new Tauihi Basketball Aotearoa Women’s League, the Warriors Women and the White Sox.
And it continues its unique partnership with LockerRoom, providing a bursary to increase the number of women working in sports journalism and to promote coverage of women in sports.
“It shocks me that only 15 percent of sports coverage in New Zealand is women’s sport,” says Moloney.
She is also keen to advance the discussion on women leadership in sport and diversity and inclusion.
“I think it’s Sky’s role to amplify the broader conversation. We need to make sure we all agree on this and ask ourselves, “What does success mean?” It’s great to have a campaign and to draw people in emotionally, but what does it actually do? What is the change we want to bring about?” Moloney says.
“Now I’ve come in for a breath after a really big year for Sky, we’re starting to get the results and I’m really interested in spending a little more time with relevant people to have that conversation.”
Moloney hopes all platforms involved in women’s sport – like the media, Sport NZ and Women in Sport Aotearoa – can work together to become “that much more powerful”.
“It’s not just about the amazing high-performance athletes; it’s about all these stories around all women who are successful in sport,” she says. “I’d love to have this conversation about how we are increasing women’s sport across all platforms in a way that connects all the dots.
“We will not stop emphasizing wāhine on screen and the people behind it. We are on the right path.”
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