How women in sport pay the bills
Former Kiwi sportswomen say the stark differences in attitudes towards sports played by male and female athletes means most women have plans beyond the game.
Ex-Black Cap Nathan McCullum said he didn’t think about life after sport until the ‘‘latter stages’’ of his career and most of his former team-mates weren’t planning for a day job either.
But Black Ferns captain from
1997 until 2006 Farah Palmer said most female athletes had a day job to support their dream of representing their country in sport.
‘‘I knew as a female athlete the chances of me getting paid to play were quite low so I always focused on my education and getting a qualification,’’ Palmer said.
‘‘That was pretty much out of necessity because we were getting a daily allowance only when we were together as a team, which altogether was about two months every year,’’ she said.
Palmer said the team was earning $30 a day in the late 1990s and by the time she retired in
2006, they were given an allowance of $150 a day.
In the early 90s the inequality between men and women was strong, but accepted as the norm, she said.
Women were given used uniforms, were only able to play when the men weren’t playing, usually Sundays, and did not have their own changing rooms.
Palmer studied physical education and earned a PhD in sociology of sport at the University of Otago while she played for her country. She is now a lecturer at Massey University.
She also became the first woman to be appointed to the New Zealand Rugby Board in 2016.
Women in Sport Aotearoa chief executive Rachel Froggatt said there were drastic differences between professional sports played by men and women.
‘‘There are only three sports that offer a solid, sustainable professional option for women – rugby, netball and cricket. Before these sports were made professional you needed another job to support you,’’ Froggatt said.
Women’s cricket became a professional sport in August this year.
Froggatt said female athletes found it challenging to have a career in sport after retiring from the field.
‘‘There are far less women in coaching positions, governance or administrative positions within sport. There’s a range of social and systemic issues that get in the way of that. There’s unconscious bias in appointing coaches, in that there’s an instinctive bias towards a male coach even for female teams.’’
About 20 per cent of coaches in NZ are female, and this dropped down to 10 per cent for elite sports, Froggatt said.
‘‘Sport is a human right, a social right for all and should be available for every single New Zealander and the decisions at the board table is not being made by a group that is representative of our diverse population,’’ she said.
‘‘With men there’s clearly quite a bit of evidence that shows pathways post sports careers because they’ve had a much longer run at being professional athletes than women.
‘‘We often refer to women’s sport as a start-up and men’s sport as a mature business. The opportunities for athletes once they retire is reflective of that. Women’s sport still needs investment and support.’’
Several female athletes had gone on to roles in governance or political roles outside of sport.
Labour MP Louisa Wall represented New Zealand as both a Silver Fern in netball and a Black Fern in rugby.
Former squash champion Dame Susan Devoy was the human rights commissioner from 2013 till 2018. Former paralympic cyclist and world champion Paula Tesoriero is the disability rights commissioner.
MYOB NZ general manager and former White Fern Ingrid Cronin-Knight also built a career outside of sport.
Cronin-Knight said she had been able to use the skills she gained during her sporting career in her management role in the tech industry.
‘‘Transferable skills from sports I got were planning for performance, goal setting, leadership and team management, keeping people motivated on what you want to achieve.’’
While Cronin-Knight had worked in the tech industry for 20 years, off the field, in roles including sales, marketing and product development, she also knew of other female athletes who ended up in financial trouble when their careers on the field ended.
‘‘Other female athletes I’ve spoken to say they were absolutely broke when they finished their career because it was all amateur and they had to pay their own way to play for New Zealand.
‘‘Even today I don’t know if we’ve got to that point where there is enough discretionary spend available for female athletes to cover their outgoings,’’ Cronin-Knight said.
Palmer said it would be more challenging for those female athletes who had sponsorships or grants to find alternative jobs
‘‘I knew as a female athlete the chances of me getting paid to play were quite low so I always focused on my education and getting a qualification.’’
Farah Palmer
after sports. ‘‘You’ve spent every spare moment trying to become a better athlete that essentially you haven’t done anything else that you can use as a backup plan,’’ she said.
She encouraged young sportspeople to be conscious of a fall-back plan after sport, and worked to pave more pathways for sportswomen into leadership roles within sports.
She said it was also important to make sports clubs more family friendly so women felt supported to return to the field after having children.
‘‘We want to keep the talent within sport.’’