Tip your hat to the Black Ferns Sevens
Hey, Joe – where you gonna run to now? New Zealand Sevens men’s representative Joe Webber is particularly fleet-of-foot, but keeping his rugby boots skipping over the turf remains a better option for him than inserting them into his mouth.
Webber replied recently to an Instagram post from Black Ferns player Chelsea Alley, who revealed she was struggling with the demands of being an elite female rugby player.
He ran with the argument that Alley – who works three jobs while also representing her country – and her teammates don’t generate enough interest or revenue to fix that situation.
‘‘Rugby is a business. If you don’t sell much product you don’t get paid much,’’ Webber commented.
‘‘If u start a business selling hats and not much are selling you then have to decide . . . do I keep selling these hats because I love it or do I need to find something else to do because I want more money,’’ he wrote.
Hey Joe, I heard you shot your lady down. Remarkably, Alley is Webber’s sister-inlaw.
It’s fortunate for Webber that he didn’t tread the wellworn path of promising to eat his hat if the women’s team got a greater audience than the men’s side – because his meal-time this week wouldn’t have been a tasty treat.
Based on Stuff’s audience numbers from our coverage of the women’s and men’s series of matches against Australia in Auckland last week, Webber would be subsisting on a diet of beanies, boaters and berets.
The stories Stuff produced on the Black Ferns Sevens outrated the coverage of the men’s team on two of the three days of competition, and for the overall series also.
As part of our ongoing commitment to improve our Women In Sport coverage, Stuff ran separate stories on the women’s games that likely in the past would have been tagged onto men’s reports.
As our audience response illustrated, the appeal of the Black Ferns Sevens is vast – and still growing. Should they therefore be better financially compensated than the men?
There was star power present for the men too – last year’s All Blacks rookie sensation Caleb Clarke has switched from the Blues, while Chiefs wing Etene Nanai-Seturo is also seeking Tokyo Olympics gold.
But they and their teammates are outshone by the glittering talent of the women’s team – Portia Woodman, Michaela Blyde, Shakira Baker, Tyla NathanWong, Ruby Tui, Gayle Broughton . . .
They form the basis of a side which, since losing the 2016 Rio Olympics final, have won three of the past four World Series, a Commonwealth Games gold medal, a Sevens World Cup crown and compiled a 50-match winning streak.
Webber made some valid points in his replies to Alley’s post – which was liked by All Blacks Ardie Savea, Akira Ioane and Ofa Tu’ungafasi among almost 6000 others – but failed to recognise the NZ women’s sevens side is a hat company which, despite a century of disadvantages in its trade in areas of workforce, marketing, cashflow, corporate support and promotions, has quickly proven itself to be a viable commodity; even when generating business isn’t its sole and immediate purpose.
‘‘I’m happy to be wrong but said with love,’’ Webber noted.
If that aroha is shared, then he might not need to find something else to do should the Black Ferns out-rate their male counterparts in Tokyo.
But it’s understood there’s an opening in hat retailing.