The number of stories about women in sport is growing, new research from Sport New Zealand has found.

Data released on Thursday, to coincide with the third anniversary of the release of the Government’s Women and Girls in Sport and Active Recreation Strategy, found coverage of women in sport has increased from 15 per cent to 17 per cent in the first six months of 2021.

It also found nearly one quarter of stories were written by female journalists – up from 20 per cent – and more than 25 per cent of women’s sports stories featured female athletes competing on home soil.

Women’s cricket coverage improved from 9 per cent to 15.2 per cent and increased during the tours of international women’s cricket teams.

The data collected by Sport New Zealand canvassed one third of media coverage by major media outlets including Stuff, which grew its coverage from 12.6 per cent to 18.3 per cent.

Sport NZ research released on International Women’s Day in March by Dot Loves Data found men’s rugby received more coverage than all of women’s sport combined.

New Zealand media lead the world with women’s sports coverage, with coverage making up less than 10 per cent of sports stories in Australia, the UK and USA.

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Geoff Collett, Stuff editor-in-chief of verticals, said the organisation “is committed to an ongoing increase in coverage of women’s sports”.

“… while we’ve made progress in the past six months, it is early days, and we know we need to keep improving,” he said.

“We recognise that the whole media, and indeed the wider sport ecosystem, still have a way to go.

“Stuff has processes in place to drive its efforts to better support women’s sport. We will continue to stretch the targets expected in our coverage.”

In September 2020 Stuff launched its Women in Sport section, with sports editor Fred Woodcock saying the section was established to “specifically showcase women’s sport, a place where fans could cut through the noise straight to female sporting talent”.

Based on Stuff’s audience numbers, readers and fans alike are engaging with women’s sports coverage, including the coverage of Olympic gold-medal winning Black Ferns Sevens. During the buildup to the Tokyo Olympics the women outshone their male counterparts in terms of readership, on several occasions.

Sport New Zealand chief executive Raelene Castle said it’s positive to see change in “an area of long standing under-representation of women”.

“The results for cricket are particularly good to see as we lead into summer and next year’s ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup,” she said.

“Gender balance, however, remains a long way off. We should recognise progress but must also keep working towards equal representation of coverage and in newsrooms.

“Many media companies have work underway to build on these latest results, but it’s vital this continues so New Zealand can make the most of hosting three women’s world cups. We have a huge opportunity to create lasting change in the gender balance of sports media in New Zealand.”

Former international basketballer and Olympian Megan Compain is behind the S’PORT campaign with Cricket Wellington, encouraging fans to engage with women’s sport. She’s pleased to see numbers are “trending in the right direction”.

She said that’s helped by the increase of women’s sport offered by National Sports Organisations. The coverage has a “100 per cent” positive impact on girls and women participating in sport, because if you can’t see it, you can’t be it, she said.

“They are moving in the right direction. There’s been a lot of work done by … advocates to get to that point,” she said.

“I’ve been really impressed with the coverage of the Tall Ferns [basketball team]. You never used to see anything, now we’re getting regular updates. We are getting there. Our people are starting to want more.”

She hopes by fans seeing stories about their favourite female athletes it will turn into “bums on seats”, with fans turning up to watch sporting events in person, once Covid restrictions are lifted. She’s also pleased to see big names, including the All Blacks, supporting their sporting wahine.

“It’s all part of the bigger groundswell. The people who do care [about women’s sport] are out there, and those on the fence or aren’t aware or looking for it are going to be influenced by [an All Black] saying they watch and support women’s sport,” she said.

“If you are already engaged and interested in sport, it doesn’t take much to convert that to female athletes. The more you are looking for it, the more you will find. It’s a snowball from there.”