More equality - and diversity - before and behind the camera is Sky Sport's goal over the next five years, and there's one young voice calling louder than most, Ashley Stanley discovers.
Ashmeeta Singh wants to hear more diverse voices around the Sky Sport studios.
The young Indian woman has been at Sky for seven years, the last five in the sports department as a production manager.
“Ultimately my goal is to have more female voices around the company," says Singh, who's also researching 'working culture' as part of her Master of sport management degree. "We’re already kind of doing that with Sophie [Moloney] as our CEO, but I would love to have more female voices. And just more diverse voices.
“I think being a woman in my department, personally it's quite hard, and I think being a minority is quite difficult. So that’s something I’m going to focus on with Sky this year. And hopefully make some progress.”
Singh isn't alone in her ambition. In fact, Sky wants to have equal women's and men's sports coverage - and equality with the people behind and in front of the camera - in the next five years.
As part of her final year of postgraduate study at Massey University, Singh chose to research working culture and is able to complete it at Sky.
“I would just love for anyone to be able to walk into work and just say how they feel without feeling like they're going to be judged,” says the 30-year-old.
There are women scattered across the organisation, mainly in administrative roles, says Singh. But there's been positive movement in other areas of sports coverage.
On the commentary side, Rikki Swannell made her debut in the box for Super Rugby Aotearoa this year - the first woman to do so at Sky. They are aiming to get more in the hot seats calling the shots in the future.
Sky is also looking at a more even split of its league commentary team when the Warriors return to Mt Smart Stadium, and to introduce more female presenters and guests to their shows. Kiwi Fern Krystal Rota was on the ‘Game Day’ panel for the Warriors' ANZAC game against the Melbourne Storm at AAMI Park.
And there will be seven women in the crew of 17 heading over to cover the Tokyo Olympics in July. They were hoping to have a 50-50 split, but all four reporters are women - another first - with Bernadine Oliver-Kerby, Kirsty Stanaway, Storm Purvis and Swannell fronting the major event.
In the decision-making ranks, Moloney is joined by Chris Major, director of external affairs, in the executive leadership team. And on the Sky board there are two women out of the five directors, in media powerhouse Joan Withers and technology extraordinaire Geraldine McBride.
But diverse voices would go further than gender to markers like ethnicity, ability and members of the rainbow communities, to name a few identities. One of the influential players who agrees and is in a position to make this a reality is Tex Teixeira.
At the time of speaking to Teixeira, he was the chief content officer at Sky, but he’s recently been given a new role on the executive team as director of live sport innovation and community engagement. Teixeira moved to New Zealand from South Africa nine years ago with his wife and three children. He is Portuguese but was raised in South Africa after his family moved there when he was two.
Initiatives to get more women involved in sport at Sky has been set as a long-term priority for the organisation.
“I’m encouraged by how we've continued to improve from a Sky point of view and continue to increase the exposure,” says Teixeira, who has been in the industry for over 30 years (21 of those at Super Sport in South Africa). “I totally agree it's not where it should be, but it’s a goal and a long-term view that we all have.”
Teixeira says it’s important to have growth of women across the board because it’s the right thing to do. “The only way that you can change it is to put some KPIs in place and have some targets - but not just in front of the camera,” he says.
Success would be seeing men and women’s content “side by side.”
“I would say programming, imagery, editorial, in front of the camera and behind the camera, the aim is to be at 50-50 in four to five years time,” Teixeira says.
“Our acquisition of content would be the hardest because that’s the thing that's out of our control. When we buy international rights, we don’t determine the price.”
Singh was fortunate to get an initial interview with Sky in the resources department but she knew a foot in the door was all she needed. Her persistence paid off.
“I was really annoying to one of my ex-bosses,” she says. “I just kept saying ‘I want to be in sport’, ‘I want to be in sport’, and eventually an opportunity came up and here I am.”
In the beginning she wasn’t entirely sure what a production manager did but her push for sport was driven as a big fan of watching and playing growing up (she used to play hockey and soccer). She moved with her family from Fiji to New Zealand when she was 10 to have surgery on her knee.
Bringing all the pieces of a moving puzzle together is essentially the role of a production manager.
Emailing a number of people on the go, confirming crew’s availability to work events, booking their flights, venue logistics and communicating with different stakeholders are just some of the daily tasks. Before Covid-19, Singh was involved in five to six broadcasts a month.
The standard skills of good communication and a great eye for detail is needed in production manager roles, says Singh.
“But I think you also just need to get out there and do stuff. We've had so many of our people in the department come through and they used to be cablers or started off as interns,” she says.
Singh was initially studying business at university. But in her first year of the degree, she realised it wasn’t for her, so she changed to film and media.
It wasn’t a choice her family were necessarily happy with, but it was a decision that has taken her around New Zealand.
“I had a lot of lectures when I did that about how hard it is to find a job in the industry especially when you're an Indian female. So they [family] never expected me to find a job,” laughs Singh. Her first role straight out of university took her to CTV in Christchurch, just after the earthquakes in 2011.
Career aspirations have taken her back to study. “I really want to get into the management side of sport,” says Singh. “Something like a high performance team manager or even just being a director of sport at Sky one day. It would be amazing.”
Singh also admits another of her goals has been to meet All Black great Richie McCaw. It hasn’t proved fruitful yet. “I just love rugby. I could never play it but it’s my favourite sport to watch," she says.
Her favourite moment at work was being a part of the Super Rugby Aotearoa promotion this year.
“It was really fun,” says Singh. “I don’t know how to describe meeting Tana Umaga. He just walked past and goes ‘Hey, how are you?' A complete fan girl moment, but I kept my cool though.”
She'll be keeping her cool with other initiatives this year now that all Farah Palmer Cup matches will be shown on Sky. For the upcoming football season, women’s teams will get equal coverage to the men’s.
Content accessible online like 'Playmakers' - a podcast series of in-depth interviews with athletes and administrators - has also committed to achieving an even split of coverage between women and men. Guests so far include Sport New Zealand chief executive officer Raelene Castle, dual international in rugby and netball Louisa Wall, and mixed martial artist Genah Fabian.
Teixeira says they’re still committed to the Warriors women’s team, the White Sox and the Tall Ferns.
“We use the term side-by-side at Sky... everything we do is about men and women side-by-side,” he says.
An example of this is a conversation Teixeira recalls having at the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup in Paris. “I was blown away by the quality of the women's football, how much it had grown and achieved in probably seven or eight years,” says Teixeira.
“I remember the FIFA guy saying to me, ‘This is what happens when you give them the opportunity and you create regular competitions for them to succeed and for them to become better.
“If you give someone something once or twice a year, it's quite hard for them to be successful. But if you have a programme in place, and a career path and an opportunity that allows them to grow then you’ve got long-term sustainability.
“I think that’s what we're aiming for here. Hence side-by-side. We believe it's also our responsibility as guys to be side-by-side with the women and be there supporting them.”
* Ashley Stanley has a two-year scholarship from Sky Sport to write for LockerRoom, as part of their partnership supporting our section in Newsroom dedicated to boosting the profile and coverage of Kiwi women in sport.
