The new Northern Kahu owners know that all too well — and that’s why they decided to do something about it.
Five women have banded together to buy the Tauihi basketball team, which represents the Auckland and Northland regions, making the defending champions the first wholly women-owned sports team in New Zealand.
Coach and former Tall Fern Jody Cameron believes they may have cracked another first in being the first sports team to be owned, coached and managed by only women.
Cameron is part of a diverse ownership group that includes former Football Fern and Olympian Rachel Howard, former England rugby captain and Welsh netballer Paula George, former national junior tennis player Jo Caird — the All Blacks’ first official photographer — and WomenzSports Media founder Dani Marshall.
"We want to create environments where professional women athletes can excel, where women can be themselves and where the foundation is there to support their growth," Cameron said.
It signals just how important having women’s voices involved in women’s sport are, and by having their faces front and centre, others can see what they can become.
Women deserve to be in ownership, leadership and governance roles and not just because a "quota" tells a board they need to fill those seats with women.
They are not there to fill seats and make up numbers to make organisations look good.
Women have opinions that matter, direction that is needed and an ingrained knowledge of what women require when it comes to a sporting organisation.
It is a significant development in the landscape of sport in New Zealand.
International concerns
Frustrating is really the only word to sum up our women internationally at the moment.
The Silver Ferns trail 2-0 in their three-test series against England and have made Sunday’s game in Invercargill a dead rubber.
What is more annoying is the way that they lost. It is not like England were at the top of their game — it was the Silver Ferns who let them back in and coughed up ball at crucial times.
The Silver Ferns have only beaten Uganda this year, back in January at the Nations Cup, and have lost seven of their past 11 tests against the Roses.
The Black Ferns were also their own worst enemy in their 29-27 loss to Ireland in their opening WXV1 game on Monday.
It is important to note that Ireland won WXV3 last year — two tiers below the world champions — but does this speak to the development in world rugby? Or is their cause for alarm bells among the Black Ferns?
The White Ferns have struggled massively, losing a consecutive string of T20s that has now reached double digits, and the Football Ferns have had their own problems, coach included. That team has made headlines for all the wrong reasons lately.
