What the FIFA World Cup means for women’s sport in New Zealand

With record viewership, the women’s FIFA World Cup had an impact on the way people engage with women’s sport. Photo: Katrina Mansfield

Despite the disappointment felt after their defeat in the final group stage match against Switzerland, the Football Ferns still achieved history at his years FIFA Women’s World Cup. Not just because it was their first-ever win in the tournament, but because of what it meant for the acceptance of women’s sport in Aotearoa.

 Sport is a fundamental part of New Zealand society and our national identity. However, for a long-time the significance of women’s sport has been underplayed. Media coverage of women’s sports has lagged behind that of men, with 2020 Sport NZ reporting that women’s sports made up only 15% of sports coverage in Aotearoa.

 But this is changing. Only two years later in 2022 for the first time that more than a quarter of sports coverage in New Zealand was about women at 28%. While the Football Ferns final group stage match had an average New Zealand audience of 623,201 viewers. Kiwis are tuning in to watch, and that’s a step forward.

Events in 2022 such as the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup and the Rugby World Cup caused spikes in these numbers. With the gender balance around Cricket World Cup increasing to 33% while the Rugby World Cup increased the balance to 38%.

The football world cup is having the same effect. FIFA reported that around 1.88 million Kiwis have been watching the tournament. That’s roughly 36% of the population.

Rachel Harris and Katrina Mansfield are steering group members at Women in Sport Waitaha, an independent volunteer group working to advance equality for women in girls to be active in Canterbury.

They believe that the World Cup has been having a positive impact on the coverage of women’s sports. Harris thought it is helping to bring women’s sport into the mainstream media.

“We're seeing stories about women's sport as like the headline on sports news and the television and it's leading radio stories and there's coverage in papers,” she said.

So yes, more Kiwis are watching women’s sport. But what does this mean for the way we view and value women’s sport in Aotearoa in the long term?

Firstly, the way Kiwi perceive women’s sport is an important issue to overcome. Harris and Mansfield discussed that different perceptions around women’s sport being not “as good” technically or female athletes not being as skilful do exist. However, they also believe that perceptions around women’s sport are beginning to change.

This perception is changing with Sport NZ reporting that themes of high performance, hard work, and talent in the portrayal of women’s sport saw drastic increases from 2020 to 2022. With the theme of female athletes being talented increasing from just 8.7% in 2020 to 51% in 2022.

Statistics show women are more likely to drop out of sport at a younger age compared to men. Photo: Katrina Mansfield

Harris said she wanted viewers to change their mindset and stop comparing women’s sport and men’s sport, saying that “the audience needs to learn that it's a different product to men's sport.”

But in terms of turning this changing perception into action, will the world cup have an impact on the participation of women and girls in sport?

Previous World Cups have resulted in rapid participation increases in the sport. After the 2019 Women’s World Cup the Football English Association estimated over 850,00 English women and girls took up football.

In Aotearoa increasing the participation of women in girls in sport has been a major government objective. In 2018 a strategy was launched to address the inequities in women's and girls' experiences in sport. The strategy is focused on three outcomes, leadership, participation and values and visibility.

The plan includes campaigns such as #ItsMyMove a campaign to motivate young women to be active in their way. This is also an attempt to challenge the gender participation gap, with girls dropping out of sports as teenagers at higher rates than their male peers. This gap is 17% at age 16 and increases to 28% by the age of 18.

Harris thought that confidence and a fear of being judged is something that often discourages girls from participating in sport and physical activity.

“Lots of girls feel judged literally in every aspect of their life, like at school by their friends walking down the street on social media. So a physical activity setting just needs to be a really safe place for girls to be involved and to do it their way.”

She explained that the aim of participation in sport doesn’t need to be to win saying, “It could be about each of those girls just making small improvements themselves versus, having whatever it shows on the scoreboard.”

The world cup could provide girls with the inspiration to stay in the sport. Although Christchurch has not hosted any games, Women in Sport Waitaha have still tried to harness this spirit.

Together with Christchurch NZ, they organised for a group of a hundred emerging students to have breakfast with the World Cup trophy and a group of inspirational panellists. Although they said it is difficult to know whether they will stay in the sport, it helps the momentum.

“Keeping them involved, whether it's football or whether it's sport in general, it doesn't matter to us. It’s just what that generates for the people for Canterbury.”