Reconfiguring women's professional sport

The landscape of women’s professional team sport in Australia has recently experienced dramatic change with the emergence, rapid development and popularity of professional and semi-professional competitions in sports that previously only had men’s professional competitions. How sport organisations successfully manage this new workplace and ensure appropriately supportive environments for women athletes is critical for realising the ‘hope’ that these new leagues have for gender inclusion and positive identity formation (Willson et al., 2017). Introducing women’s professional leagues challenges perceptions of the traditionally gender biased nature of commercialisation and professionalism in sport (Antunovic & Hardin, 2015), and acknowledges that women’s teams can also contribute to a sport’s brand value, appeal and influence.

As women’s professional team sport career options widen, after many years of relative lack of progress, the question that arises is: what model of sport can best facilitate and support the changes required for equity, parity and long-term sustainability? While men and women’s competitions have different origins and resources, they now co-exist within the same sport organisation, and could do so in a synergetic partnership that is beneficial to both and to the broader Australian society. This shifting sport landscape provides the opportunity for new ways of valuing and legitimising the gender inclusive potential of sport, and capitalising on opportunities to reconfigure professional women’s (and men’s) sport.