Over the past few weekends, and of course the next couple of weekends to come, we have been lucky enough to see some fantastic displays of Gaelic Football and Hurling on our National broadcaster RTÉ and of course, the newest addition, Sky Sports.
However, there’s not a sign of a ladies GAA game to be shown.
A campaign presented by the Federation of Irish Sport is on a mission to create a change in the Irish public and media’s perception of women’s sport.
The 20X20 campaign is calling on the Irish public to get behind women’s sport to increase media coverage, boost match attendance and to grow female involvement in sport by 20% at the end of 2020.
Since the start of this campaign, people have been sharing their support on social media by using the hashtags #20X20 and #ShowYourStripes. With over 8,000 followers on Instagram, it is clear that the Irish public are getting behind the drive to end the gender bias which is presented in female sports in Ireland.
But, why do we need to campaign for this equality?
Large international companies such as AIG, Investec, Lidl and KPMG are regularly and actively showing their support for ladies sport.
With AIG as the official sponsor for Dublin GAA, they provided all of the Dublin teams with new, limited edition jerseys for a select number of games over the summer with the 20X20 logo as the main feature.
This was a major boost for the campaign with the logo being shown a number of times on National television. The ladies footballers wore the limited edition jersey against Waterford in the All-Ireland Senior Championship on July 13th.
The Dublin Senior footballers also wore the jersey on July 13 during their All-Ireland SFC Quarter-final Group Phase 1 against Cork and the camogie team sported the jersey on July 20 during their All-Ireland Senior Championships Group 2 match against Clare at home.
Another huge moment for the 20X20 movement was the 20X20 banner which was proudly displayed in Croke Park recently before the All-Ireland Semi Final between Dublin and Mayo. However, the 20X20 campaign isn’t the only major player in the efforts to support ladies sport, well GAA in particular.
From the beginning of this campaign, it has been amazing to see National broadcasters and online media such as RTÉ Sport, Off The Ball (Newstalk), Sports JOE and HER.ie show their support for ladies sport in Ireland.
However, they are our “National Broadcaster”, and surely they have an obligation to fill by providing their support and showing equality to ladies sport and GAA in general.
In my opinion, the real champion supporters of this campaign are the smaller club and county channels such as the “WeAreMeath” and “TalkAGoodGame” podcasts and the Hogan Stand social media accounts.
Looking back at some of the recent phenomenal display of GAA, from both club and inter county championship, both men and women’s games were equally broadcast and commented on. TINY background teams (no more than four people) are able to commentate and share results and opinions from almost every game which took place in the Meath Football Championship over the weekend. Surely this is a step in the right direction to gain the credit and support which is well and truly deserved in ladies sport in Ireland.
In 2015, Lidl commenced a three year partnership with the Ladies Gaelic Football Association (LGFA).
A men’s Gaelic Football or Hurling Championship final sees Croke Park at capacity and typically receives 1.3 million TV viewers. It is hugely visible through multiple sponsorships and advertising.
Ladies Gaelic Football enjoyed no such support. It was largely not televised and fan turnout is significantly lower (under 30,000 at Championship Final- just about filled the lower tier of the stand).
Although the Lidl campaign was to primarily lead to more sponsorship for ladies teams, when working hand in hand with the 20X20 campaign, they have drastically changed the opinion of the Irish public towards ladies sports by achieving more sponsorship, media coverage, social media “chat” and attendance at games.
However, even though a lot has changed in ladies sport, there is still a lot to be done.
To see more ladies games covered on RTÉ would be the ultimate goal rather than just on TG4, but the media is slowly but surely showing more support for ladies sport, be it through smaller, local club podcasts to larger online and national media outlets.
Keep fighting for ladies sports and #ShowYourStripes!
Abigail
