On Tuesday, a new documentary about women’s sport, Game On, received its premiere, and the London screening was followed by a Q&A with some of its participants. When the former rugby union international Ugo Monye was asked what he felt on seeing it, he couldn’t speak for tears – it took a few attempts, and a hug from a fellow panel member, before he could fashion a response.
Here was a fitting reminder of how emotive the subject of women’s sport can be. The provoking of a tear or two has always been the sign of a truly memorable moment in sport’s ultra-masculine history but for women, excluded so long from its halls of fame, even the smallest win resonates with emotion.
The first cinematic history of women’s sport, Game On eschews individual moments of glory (although it does contain some inspiring montages of England’s Red Roses, and their buildup campaign to the 2022 rugby union World Cup). Director Sue Anstiss knows her subject intimately – she has an MBE for her work promoting sport among women and girls – and it’s her clear-eyed perspective on the long-haul, third-class journey towards gender equality that puts a catch in your throat.
Given how recently women’s sport was being dismissed – even among the most progressive of media outlets – as dull, substandard and irrelevant, the trajectory that Anstiss’s film charts is a feelgood one. Amid the great millennial dumpster fire of doping, match-fixing and sportswashing, the advancement of women is arguably the industry’s most meaningful contemporary success.
And while the elite end of men’s sport has proudly taken up the mantle of self-interest and moral ambivalence, its female counterpart continues – for now at least – to embody a higher purpose. For Anstiss, sport is not an end in itself but a means to improve women’s lives: in the opening minutes of the documentary she calls it a “tool for driving social change”. Later in the film, Tanni Grey-Thompson observes that it also shines a magnifying glass on the equality that is still lacking between genders.
No wonder, then, that women’s sport comes across as more true to its roots, more altruistic – dare we say, more attractive? – than the ugly swamp of politics and venture capital in which men’s football, men’s golf and even men’s cricket are currently wallowing. After all, the people who have been running and backing it – through decades of public disinterest, institutional rebuffs and a crippling lack of funding – have done so for the good of others, and with no expectation of reward.
This isn’t to say that male athletes, pundits and administrators don’t make stands for social justice, particularly in recent years (although it’s worth remembering that it was a woman, Noreena Hertz, who first recognised the potential of newly wealthy Premier League footballers to effect change, in her campaign for nurses’ pay).
But as Anstiss and others have noted, many men who are passionate about sport only begin to notice and acknowledge the discrimination and double standards embedded in it when it affects those close to them, usually their daughters. One audience member at the screening described just such a Damascene moment when his little girl had her after-school football session cancelled, because “there were only enough coaches to take the boys”.
Game On argues that sport can facilitate discussions that otherwise struggle to be voiced. From the narrow definition of femininity and the objectification of female bodies, to the social dictates that govern the kinds of beauty and activity that are “appropriate” for women – sport is an arena where we can confront, and ultimately defeat, our hangover of cultural chauvinism. The structural injustice and sheer absurdity of requiring women to wear dresses, or bikini bottoms, or white kit to compete is, after all, still a live issue – this is the first year that Wimbledon will allow female tennis players to wear black undershorts.
But there’s another discussion we need to have. Because while change is happening, other changes loom unseen. The long-overdue removal of grassroots barriers, and the hyper-accelerated professionalisation of women’s elite sport, require ever more resource. The sector’s rapid rise is already being fuelled – and will be increasingly steered – by the commercial interests of sponsors and administrators hungry to “optimise” a whole new market.
The talking heads in Anstiss’s film – from Grey-Thompson and Denise Lewis to Stacey Copeland and Clare Balding – all agree that women’s sport is special. Its painful climb from the lower plains of niche-sporting-subculture means its greatest role models are still “just people”, accessible to and invested in those who come out to support them. The family-friendly nature of matches, seats full of women and children who exhibit none of the learned behaviour of the football stadium, offers a refreshing contrast to the aggressively tribal atmosphere of so much men’s sport.
The metrics that measure the success of women’s sport have also been different to those that prevail elsewhere. Participation and inclusion are the priorities, not shareholder profits. In March, the hosts of the 2023 football Women’s World Cup, Australia and New Zealand, won a significant victory when they forced Fifa to backtrack on its planned Saudi Arabian sponsorship deal for the tournament, arguing that it made a mockery of their gender equality mission.
Women’s sport is entering uncharted waters, whose depths will be richly stocked with dazzling prizes and murky compromises. The question that needs to be asked now – as loudly and often as possible – is what it can do to resist the pressures that threaten its values and virtues, and fashion a sustainable future. Will (and should) its executives ignore the well-worn path to the door of the betting industry? Can England’s Lionesses remain the approachable face of elite football, or will they – like today’s highest-paid women’s tennis players – disappear behind a wall of sponsored appearances and curated Insta feeds?
The guest list at the Game On premiere boasted Olympians, netballers, rugby and hockey players, and female administrators, all of whom have spent their careers fighting for a fairer, better sports industry. If the future of women’s sport needs extraordinary and principled leadership, the good news is that there are plenty of women with the qualifications and experience to offer it.
• Game On: The Unstoppable Rise of Women’s Sport is released on Netflix on 26 June
