Shaun Martyn

Inclusion, Exclusion, Diversity, Equality…. They are just words. It’s actions that count!

– Shaun Martyn, FairBreak Founder

I’ve followed the Manly RL club fiasco this week and can’t remain silent. I can’t remain silent because we have been living the inclusion, opportunity, diversity brief at FairBreak every day, for years.

We just had 90 players from 35 countries compete in a tournament in Dubai celebrating the diversity and inclusiveness of cricket. This was the first time anything has been staged of this magnitude in a team sport.

Broadcast to 141 countries and seen by 30-40mill. Check out the response by players and viewers if you don’t believe me on our website www.fairbreak.net or social channels @fairbreakglobal.

I have no idea how many religions were represented across all the players, officials and management as it doesn’t influence any decision about who is involved.

This week we have seen what should have been a celebration of the outstanding contributions women make to Rugby League in Australia.

Instead, we got one of the most mismanaged debacles I have witnessed from a marketing and messaging perspective in sport. Whoever is responsible at Manly should be shown the door if they haven’t been already.

The hypocrisy just screams out. In a ‘Women in League’ round we object to something on religious grounds but are happy to have a betting sponsor on our kit and play in a stadium named after an alcohol brand. Gambling and alcohol are two of the biggest issues in family dislocation and domestic violence! Can someone please sit the players down and explain that to them.

Q: How come they don’t refuse to play because of those issues?

A: Betting and Alcohol pay their salaries.

The sooner we have ‘pure sport’ across all sport the better for everyone regardless of gender, sexual orientation, race, religion or ethnicity.

Sport is supposed to be a celebration of the ‘best’ in all of us. Something we should remind ourselves of everyday.

Image thanks to Clay Banks on Unsplash

Gender pay equity and professional sport – what’s the go?!

I’ve got a lot of questions that need answering and I hope someone can help me. Some of these questions have been on my my mind long before I started FairBreak. Longer still before #genderequity #genderequality and #genderpaygap existed as hashtags. But for now, let’s start with a couple.

How do the governing bodies in major sports justify less than equal pay?

When I see the passion, skill and rightly-deserved success of the Australian women’s soccer team, the Matildas,

I’m perplexed. More paying fans turn up to watch them play against Brazil than an AFL semi-final, or to see the Wallabies play in Australia. And yet, for years one of the central arguments concerning gender pay equity in professional sport has been that a women’s game wouldn’t generate a paying audience.

That doesn’t seem to be the case now.

How do the governing bodies in major sports justify less than equal pay? the Matilda’s should surely be paid the same as the Wallabies shouldn’t they? They draw a bigger crowd.

To further reinforce the value of the Matildas, the FFA has just announced that they are moving the FFA Cup final date from November 22 because the Matildas game against China takes precedence.

So is there something that I’m missing here? I hope someone can help me to better understand.

There is a lot to cogitate on.

If 126 million viewers watched the ICC Women’s World Cup cricket final overall, which includes I.I million alone in the UK, what was the advertising revenue generated? Where did that go?

I’m curious about how advertising revenue generated from women’s sport and fan engagement is distributed.

Plenty more questions, but so few answers… more to come next week.

– Shaun Martyn, FairBreak and WICL Founder.