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The Game Changers
In this award-winning podcast Sue Anstiss MBE talks to trailblazing women in sport. These are the individuals who are knocking down barriers and challenging the status quo for women and girls everywhere. Along with openly sharing their historic careers, what drives them and how they’ve dealt with the toughest challenges, each episode explores key issues for equality in sport and beyond.
We’re incredibly grateful to Sport England who support The Game Changers with a National Lottery award.
You can find out about all the guests at https://www.fearlesswomen.co.uk/thegamechangers
Fearless Women in Sport
The Game Changers
Sally Horrox: Transforming the business of women’s sport
Our guest on The Game Changers today is Sally Horrox, Chief of Women’s Rugby at World Rugby.
Sally has an incredible track record in transforming women’s sports. A former non-executive director of England Netball, advisor the FA, UEFA and other international football federations, Sally played a leading role in the creation of the Netball Super League AND the FA Women’s Super League.
An expert in the professional and commercial development of women’s sport, Sally has worked internationally on major projects in women's football, tennis and netball, understanding first-hand how to create and develop professional leagues, major events and commercial partnerships.
At World Rugby Sally leads the Women in Rugby team, collaborating with colleagues across the sport to accelerate women in rugby on, and off the field.
In this fascinating hour we explore what it takes to truly accelerate progress for women’s rugby – and women’s sport – worldwide, from creating professional pathways to building commercial success and driving global participation.
Thank you to Sport England who support The Game Changers Podcast with a National Lottery award.
Find out more about The Game Changers podcast here: https://www.fearlesswomen.co.uk/thegamechangers
Hosted by Sue Anstiss
Produced by Sam Walker, What Goes On Media
A Fearless Women production
Hello and welcome to The Game Changers the podcast, where I speak to trailblazing women in sport, the leaders, pioneers and rule breakers who are reshaping the world of sport for future generations. Before we start, I'd like to take a moment to thank our partner, Sport England, who support The Game Changers podcast with a National Lottery Award. My guest today is Sally Horrox, Chief of Women's Rugby at World Rugby. Sally has an incredible track record in transforming women's sports. A former non-executive director of England Netball, advisor to the FA, uefa and other international football federations, Sally played a leading role in the creation of the Netball Super League and the FA Women's Super League.
Sue Anstiss:An expert in the professional and commercial development of women's sport, Sally's worked internationally on major projects in football, tennis and netball, understanding first-hand how to create and develop professional leagues, major events and commercial partnerships. At World Rugby, Sally leads the women in rugby team, collaborating with colleagues across the world to accelerate women in rugby on and off the field. So, Sally, you started your career as a solicitor. In fact, you worked for 10 years in law and business before transitioning into sport. So what led you to leave a career in commercial law to move across into sport?
Sally Horrox:Well, working as a lawyer was a great grounding when I think back now to the experience and the skills I developed over those 10 years. First with a big international law firm it was DLA Piper that I worked with. I think about the academic rigor, the discipline, the problem solving, some of which I was good at, some of which frustrated the heck out of me. I have quite an entrepreneurial streak and a short attention span at times.
Sally Horrox:I'm from the north of England, I'm from Lancashire originally. I started working with DLA Piper in Manchester, but then that took me overseas and it took me to Hong Kong. So not only did I get a good training, I got great experience, I got the chance to travel. Some of those skills I still use today in my work the commercial work around legal contracting, broadcast deals, commercial deals, this professional and commercial development of women's sport. But big shout out to that particular law firm.
Sally Horrox:They also supported me in my netball career as well, so they allowed me the time off to play. They supported my transition. They supported my transition. It also sort of gave me the chance to look at netball overseas. So I saw what was going on in Australia and in New Zealand, two countries that we traveled to a lot and I saw Friday night TV. The netballers were on the telly on a Friday night. The leagues were streets ahead from where we were in the UK. So that piqued my interest. So the skills I developed gave me a foundation. The travel gave me sort of an outside-in look into sport around the world.
Sally Horrox:If we sort of fast forward as lottery funding came into the UK, into England, and I started or retired from playing netball, eventually I thought, ah, I can use these legal and business skills and I can transfer over at a time when those were required as a lot of sports in the UK were making that transition from amateur to semi-pro to pro. But I should also just mention that the business career wasn't just in a law firm environment. I joined a startup, legal business consultancy, which we grew from a city-based legal operation to a big international business that we sold to Hayes PLC. And that experience of running a business, sales, business development, grooming a business for sale, understanding how to lead, understanding how to manage people, a business for sale, understanding how to lead, understanding how to manage people that, combined with the legal skills, probably set me up more than I ever imagined for the later stages of my career.
Sue Anstiss:You mentioned very casually there your netball career and I know you've played netball internationally and I've known you for a long time. But I didn't really know that about you until I started researching this. You're obviously incredibly humble about your sporting pedigree, but you played netball internationally. You played in the netball world cup in 1991. So can you tell? Us a little bit more about your netball career. I've only ever obviously taught work with you.
Sally Horrox:Yeah, very true. Well, I was playing at that time. Well, sort of go back a little bit further, I played at school and then I'm quite a curious character and I quite like trying new things. So I then diverted, played a bit of hockey, played a bit of lacrosse, went to university and it was only in my 20s that I came back to netball and I came back through going to law school and then, when I got placed in Hong Kong, I met an amazing coach, val Eaton, who was an ex-Diamonds Aussie player who coached Hong Kong. So I actually ended up playing internationally whilst I lived in Hong Kong. She was amazing and I just got a different level of exposure to, as I said, international sport and the approach and the ethos around the training. I can remember playing in Hong Kong and then playing in the World Championships, the World Cup that was in Sydney.
Sally Horrox:I then ended up coming back to England with the law firm that I was working with and playing for Middlesex. So I came back into the UK, played for Middlesex, worked my way through, never did get a full international cap for England, always ended up playing in that sort of development squad, played some great sort of home international friendlies, warm-up games but never made that final cut. I ended up managing a netball team, our netball team. That took us through the next cycle. I was playing under Mary Beardwood, who was my coach at the time in Middlesex, who transitioned to England and then, when I retired as an athlete, she tapped me on the shoulder and said how do you fancy transitioning into a leadership role with England netball and coming along with me to manage the England netball team?
Sue Anstiss:Oh, wow.
Sally Horrox:That was how that door opened, at the same time as lottery funding was coming in, et cetera, into the sport.
Sue Anstiss:And, as you say, you had those roles in netball for over 20 years. I think you worked in a series of executive non, you had those roles in Netball for over 20 years. I think you worked in a series of executive non-executive roles, managing, at the start, that England team for the World Cup in New Zealand in 1999 and the Commonwealth Games in Manchester in 2002. So how much did that role of working with the players impact the work that you've done since then, that you're doing now?
Sally Horrox:Hugely If I think about the legal and business background that I think has given me that foundational base and the credibility as I've moved through my career on the professional and commercial development of sport.
Sally Horrox:Working in elite sport, right at the cutting edge with high performing teams and demanding leaders, brilliant, brilliant coaches, fantastic athletes, has definitely taught me a lot. I mean, if you talk about drive and excellence and this sort of relentless focus on performance, whether you take that on a court or off a pitch, I learned a huge amount from the athletes and from the coaches and the leadership team. Also, culture you learn that you are part of the glue, your behaviors, the way you act, the way you speak when you're part of that sort of team and you learn about how culture really matters. Certainly, I learned a lot about team. You get that culture right, you get the leadership right, that team then is unstoppable. It's remarkable how you can elevate performance, what you can achieve when you put your mind to it. I've absolutely taken so much from working in performance sport across to my work now. No doubt at all.
Sue Anstiss:And you were also part of a team that created the initial Netball Super League. So can you take us back there to 2004? What was the kind of state of play? What was the landscape like in Netball at the time?
Sally Horrox:Well, we didn't have that sort of weekly training environment that I now talk about so much and didn't have that week in, week out domestic competition at the level that we felt was going to kick the game on. And of course, I'd seen that when we'd been placed in Australia and New Zealand. I'd seen what it was doing in those countries. At that stage you talk about mentors or leaders. I was working quite closely with Wai Tamanu, who's a fierce Maori leader, a woman from New Zealand, ex-captain of the Silver Films, who I'd played against, and now she came over to England and was our performance director and she looked at the landscape with others, a few of the other leadership team, and took a view that we needed to create at the time what was a super cup. But yeah, at the time we were a wholly amateur sport, we didn't have a full-time training environment for athletes and we were on that journey. So why Tamanu in particular?
Sally Horrox:And the management team at England Netball recognized the need to create that and that was my transition. After 10 years as a lawyer, after playing the sport, after moving into team management, I then took a break and had a family. After moving into team management, I then took a break and had a family. We had three children in quick succession between 2002 and 2006. And that was the time that I was able to sort of jump off the corporate sort of bandwagon and, with this change of environment in the netball, get involved, roll my sleeves up and get involved in the first stage of the establishment of the Netball Super League.
Sue Anstiss:And was there much resistance to it at the time, or was it something that the sport felt it needed?
Sally Horrox:That's a great question because it takes me back. I can remember, actually, the conversations that were going on with county netball. At the time I was the captain of Middlesex. I was coming out of Middlesex, transitioning and moving to this sort of executive sports administration role and we had to do a whole review of the pyramid, the structures, the counties, and I can remember, you know, having a huge sense of sort of love and all the experience I'd got as a young player working and playing in that sort of county infrastructure. So it was tough, you know. There was a sense of losing a bit of that heritage and a bit of that history, and that continued for quite a few years. The Netball Super League, as you know, has gone through a couple of iterations over the last 20 years, but it was a controversial decision at the time but I definitely think it was the right time to build those foundations.
Sue Anstiss:And you went on to chair the Vitality Netball Super League and you remained on the main board. I think you remained there until 2017. So what's it like for you to have watched that evolution, as you say, over 20 years, to where we are today with Netball Super League 2.0?0?
Sally Horrox:well, I'm very proud of the fact that I managed to sort of work and play and contribute in my sport right across from sort of amateur through to helping in some way to to shape that transition, this pathway to professionalism that the sport has been on. And yeah, you're right, eventually I joined the England Netball Board and I'm now proudly aware I have an honorary life member.
Sue Anstiss:I saw that. I saw that. It's amazing, isn't it?
Sally Horrox:Yeah, it's something I'm very proud of. It made me realise as well, gave me a much broader understanding that transition across of you know what it's like to steward a sport and the responsibility that you feel in a sort of leadership role. Because, whilst you know I love playing the game and my instinct is to be around the players and on the pitch on the court, you realize you know there's a much broader understanding required of governance, of leadership, of what it takes to shape a sport, what it takes to connect those pathways from participation to performance, and there's the economic stability of a sport that's so sharply required as it develops. So I learned an awful lot over those 20 years as I transitioned through Netball Super League to chairing it. Because chairing it was part of my remit on England Netball Board. Everyone had a responsibility in addition to their sort of volunteering on the board and because I had a commercial background and a performance background, it was an obvious spot for me to contribute.
Sally Horrox:But yeah, I learned a lot about leadership with that group and also people's sort of deep commitment to to the sport and the people in it. They really, really care To volunteer at that level and put the time in that you put in. It was quite humbling really, and it probably is a gain If you talk about all these facets of my experience. I got a lot out of that and I think it was at a relatively young age. I've always ended up being one of the younger people I'm not so young now, but I felt like a couple of good men and good women have tapped me on the shoulder along the way and brought me into those environments. And the skill there is listening. You've got to listen well, listen well, listen hard and try and make good decisions that serve the sport well.
Sue Anstiss:And beyond being an honorary life member of England Netball with your lovely pin badge, are you still involved in netball in any way today, other than a passionate fan?
Sally Horrox:Great question. I am a mother of four kids, two of whom played a lot of netball out of Bath. So one of our girls is still playing. So I'm there supporting, I'm there being the driver, the parent running around the country, and she loves her sport. And I have been involved behind the scenes, volunteering and supporting and doing a bit of consultancy work when I was independent. But also one of the things I've had to be conscious of as I've developed in my career is also independence, integrity and conflict, because I've moved from netball into football. I've moved from football through a really interesting time as an independent working in a small business and doing work in tennis, which was fantastic, and now into rugby. So you've also got to maintain your independence and declare conflict from time to time. So I can't dive in with them much as I'd like to sometimes.
Sue Anstiss:As you alluded to then, you then spent almost a decade driving women's football working with the Football Association, the FA. So what was your initial remit in that role?
Sally Horrox:Well, it was a six-week feasibility study. It's the story of my life. I'm quite curious. I always like to go through sort of doors as they open, meet new people. I'd met Kelly Simmons, who has remained a firm friend and is still on this journey in the professional and commercial development of women's sport, women's football same path that I'm treading in parallel. And football made contact and I developed a relationship there because they'd seen what was happening in netball, so they'd seen that we developed the foundations as we moved on this pathway to professionalism, to creating a new league, and they were looking in from the outside.
Sally Horrox:I had that conversation with a couple of leaders at the FA Kelly was part of that and that led to a feasibility study on the creation of a professional women's league.
Sally Horrox:You know what's the size of the prize, what's the commercial potential for women's football? We did that for two months in 2006, 2007, I think, and then that led to working for the FA over a decade, essentially A really exciting time to come in. You know, the brink of this new era full of potential, and it was about creating strategies and creating a plan to develop and lead the commercial and professional development of women's football in this country, but spearheaded by the creation of what is now the Women's Super League. So that was the task. Six weeks became 10 years on and off, and it was an incredible journey and again, one of the things that I'm incredibly proud of now when I look back to where that league and competition is now in terms of its expansion and its recognition as being one of the world-leading competitions and the fact that it's created careers and a professional pathway for women, thousands of women all over the world not all down to me, by the way, but you can just see how it unlocks those opportunities, which is fabulous.
Sue Anstiss:So you talked about that feasibility study in 2006 or so, but it was 2011,. I think it was initially created and then, in 2014, expanded to two divisions. What was the environment like in terms of at the FA versus what you'd experienced within the netball super league in that environment, with a much difference in terms of the the environment around?
Sally Horrox:the sport. Well, the size and scale of football is completely different and I experience that now as well in rugby, because rugby is a, you know, a smaller sport played in fewer countries around the world. But I'd come from an all-female sport at the time at England, netball into sport played by men and women on a much greater scale, which is quite intimidating actually, and you can start to doubt yourself. I was thinking just in preparing for our conversation. I was reflecting on the different environments in netball versus football, versus tennis and rugby. Football taught me a huge amount because the working netball. In a way, we'd managed to test something, we'd managed to pilot something, we knew what worked. Well, the principles still remained the same. So as you transferred across, you were still holding onto the principles around creating an athlete centered competition, something that had a long-term economic sustainability, something that balanced the way the investment worked behind, building infrastructure and pathways, while still having a sort of eye on participation right the way through from grassroots to the elite game.
Sally Horrox:But you were just doing it on a larger scale. You were also working with the Premier League. You were working with professional men's football clubs. So you had to back yourself. You had to have the confidence that you knew what you were doing. This was tried and tested. The model worked, but you had to apply it in a football setting. But I can remember many meetings. You know, the difference being I would go into meetings with professional men's football clubs, with leaders of skills here that are relevant. I know my stuff, I can apply those skills in this setting. I have to be really aware of that and then bring these people with me. So it felt like a receptive environment. But you had to prove yourself and you also had to work really hard to prove the economic and business case for what we were presenting, because of the size and scale of the investment, which was much greater. Honestly, I really enjoyed that, that being held to account.
Sue Anstiss:I was going to ask you then because you have worked I'm going to come on to talk about rugby, but you've worked in many environments that are those predominantly male environments and what do you think are some of those unique challenges? You have alluded a bit to that and being in those rooms and maybe needing to present yourself differently, but how have you personally navigated those challenges?
Sally Horrox:I think you have to be very aware of the room that you're going into and the audience that you are speaking to, and I don't think that's always a male-female issue. I mean, it's a fair point, having worked in male-dominated environments, in law firms as well as in business, as in sport. But I think you in my case I can only speak for myself have to be acutely aware of the problem that you're trying to solve and the different people's perspective in the rooms, and I suppose that's a skill that I'm very conscious of working to hone over the years. So if we were going into a room, into a predominantly male room of leaders in men's professional football clubs, you'd be working out, okay, what's in it for them. If they're trying to build fan base, if they're trying to attract more women into the game, if they want to enhance reputation, if they want to present the sport differently, how can we work in partnership together to do that? So that's always been my approach to those environments.
Sally Horrox:And then just one further caveat to that sometimes you do come across people who are just obstinate, have a different point of view or just do not understand your perspective, and that's difficult and I always retreat to I'm a natural optimist my glasses mostly half full a position of right. I need to educate, I need to explain, I need to take this person with me and on the whole it served me well. But sometimes you just hit a brick wall and that has happened from time to time and then what I've always done is just take myself out of the room, out of the situation. And this is where resilience comes in and maybe this is where performance, sport, comes in. You think right, I failed here, Don't take personal slight. In that situation, I have failed to be able to persuade or influence whoever that person is. So I'll go away, try and break it down and come back at it again from a different perspective. But I rarely give up and there's usually a partnership, a compromise position that you can reach. You know it is exhausting from time to time.
Sue Anstiss:I love that approach, though there is that whole collaboration, win-win, not needing to dominate, for someone else to lose in order for you to win a point, and I think that's yeah. You definitely see a change in leadership, you hope, moving forwards. I'm going to go back to when you were at the FA. I know a lot of your work was around the new commercial strategy for the women's game, so separating and restructuring commercial and media rights to raise profile and increase the investment. As you look back now from where you were to where we are today, is it where you thought it would get to in terms of that commercial investment and the funding that we've had with Broadcast Rights for WSL?
Sally Horrox:Yes, it is. I think one of the themes to my sort of career experience and I suppose my approach is that I will always try to look forward 10 or 20 years hence, always because sport works in performance cycles, it works in Olympic cycles, it works in World Cup cycles and my experience of building a business before I shifted into netball and then onwards into football and beyond was that you really need a clear goal, a clear plan and you need to work through growth cycles to achieve your end goal. You often have to pivot along the way. You might acquire along the way and that's very much the approach I had, probably in netball. It was too early, it was really foundational stages and you can see where netball is moving now on that more commercial, professional pathway. But in football, part of that feasibility initially the study we did, initially the goal that I set was for us to accelerate development over a decade to beat the Brown Bundesliga, which was 21 years mature at that stage. So we were trying to get in 10 years or certainly I was in 10 years what the Bundesliga had achieved in 21 or 22 at the time and I reckon we got there in eight against our pathway with that expansion plan as you described. But then beyond that, as I moved out of the FA, one of the last things I can remember sort of pitching to the board, the management team with Kelly, was that we should bid for the women's Euros, to bring the women's Euros in now.
Sally Horrox:That was the stage that I then exited and moved out to work independently, went to work, do some work for UEFA and a little bit for FIFA, and then the transition to rugby. But there was always that forward view of where it could go to next. And for me when I looked at the valuation I would always look at you know, what's the valuation here? What's the valuation of this book? What's the size, the commercial potential of it? I always benchmark that against the full valuation of what men's football was. So even if we were to take 5%, 10%, 15%, 20% of a valuation, it would be a stellar valuation compared to where we were and I had confidence in the size of the audience, the size of the market, all of the green shoots, that sort of first stage that we were seeing. So even when I exited after sort of the hands-on piece of leading that stage of development, in my mind you know, it had a stellar opportunity in front of it, and that's clearly been taken on by some great leaders, since I moved to one side.
Sue Anstiss:And it was three years ago. Was it really three years ago that you joined World Rugby as Chief of Women's Rugby? That seems to have come very quickly. So what attracted you to that role? What were you doing at the time and why did you make that shift across to that fantastic role?
Sally Horrox:Well, covid had something to do with it. That was a time when we all probably, I'm sure, sat back and had a rethink about many things in our life. Just before COVID, myself and a wonderful woman, sally Hancock, and I had you know I'd loved the time in football. I'd taken the work in England to another level, acting as a sort of an expert and advisor to UEFA. So I'd started to get a much broader European view of football, with Bundesliga, with Serie A, b&g and Italy working on growth strategies around Europe. And Sally and I had decided that we would together create a women's sport and commercial consultancy so that we could be independent and we could have a bit of fun and we could work in other sports, and it was fantastic. But then COVID hit, so probably our time together got cut short. But I have no regrets. We had the best time and some of the clients that we work with we work with the IOC, we work with Nissan, we work with Sky and we work with World Rugby I in COVID was very much based at home and had the opportunity to work on a project with World Rugby, who were also looking at the pathway to professionalism.
Sally Horrox:So here we go again, another feasibility study. It wasn't quite as focused on the creation of a league or competition, but it was focused on the professional development of women's rugby and, in a nutshell, you know that work was fantastic. I really enjoyed doing it. I did it also in partnership with another consultancy, portas Consulting, who are now CAA, and we did a wonderful piece of work, met some great people in world rugby. A lot is to do with the people. Some great people For me at the time a very impressive chief executive, alan Gilpin, who painted a picture of a vision for growth and ambition and that led to the role that I now perform.
Sally Horrox:There was a great woman called Katie Sadlier who was in a general manager role for women's rugby at the time. She took on a job as the chief executive of Commonwealth Games, which is great. It's always great to see people stepping up and moving through. But women's rugby at the time she took on a job as the chief executive of Commonwealth Games, which is great. It's always great to see people stepping up and moving through.
Sue Anstiss:I should just say she's a lovely guest on the Game Changers. I can't remember what series it is, but she was a lovely guest on the Game Changers podcast too.
Sally Horrox:Fantastic. So there's a bit of time and place to all of these moves. There's the curiosity, there's the opportunity, but there's a little bit of time and place. You do create your own luck. I think we've done a great piece of work for World Rugby, but I can remember Alan saying well, here it is, here's the study, here's the report, here's the pathway. Normally you then, or sometimes when you're advising people, then file that away and put it in the bottom drawer. And this was very much right. Here you go If you're going to come into this post and, relatively speaking, work from a blank sheet of paper in a new elevated role which sits at the top table the chief of women's rugby role. So now it's your responsibility for delivering it. So that's how it came about A lot of freedom to really shape something new. And, by the way, I love rugby. I'm a massive fan. I've come from a family where we love it and our children play it, so it's great again to be part of that community.
Sue Anstiss:And you're working across 130, I think, member unions, which sounds like an enormous challenge, especially, I guess, when you've come from places in sports where it may be one national governing body, one country almost, or home nations. But can you tell us a bit more about how you go about creating unity within your role across the sport when you're recognising there are so many regional differences?
Sally Horrox:Well, one size doesn't fit all. I mean, that's the obvious comment. I'm in America at the moment. I'm sort of sitting here in New York just watch them play Fiji. You know, Fiji is not like France, France is not like the USA, it's not like Madagascar. So you've got huge differences in size and scale of development and you have to remember that. Remember that. And in culture, frankly as well, we're dealing with economic challenges, You're dealing with war zones and conflict in some areas of the world, You're dealing with gender-based violence, and this is just some of the issues you deal with off the pitch. So you've got to be really acutely aware of that in all your dealings.
Sally Horrox:Again, just the listening ear is so important so that you understand what their challenges are and what they want from you as an international federation. It's wildly different actually, from country to country and you should never assume that you know what role you're going to play. They may ask something very different of you. And then the other point is probably collaboration, not control. And then the other point is probably collaboration, not control, because the power, I think and I am on a steep learning curve here in rugby, as you say, across 133 unions is understanding, sort of the insight and the shared connections between those countries. If you can build the insight and you can build the connections, they can really learn from each other.
Sally Horrox:So, yes, we have a sort of funding relationship with unions. We make grants and we make awards and we engage in partnership on programs and competitions around the world. But if you actually sit down and you share insights and you collaborate and you connect particularly the women who are leading the sport in this different country it's remarkable how you see this stronger, sustainable union developing and their growth plans. And then the third point I'd make is you have to be pretty realistic and pragmatic about what can be achieved and what your role is and you really can help and make a difference.
Sally Horrox:But there's no point trying to sort of boil the ocean here, I found, if you can agree on two or three initiatives where you can really partner and what we've done around the World Cup. We've created these regional summits for women's rugby. We've pulled together now 50 unions 70 unions, I think, across three regions into small clusters where they can all talk to and get to know each other and they're all now building. I think we've got over 50 growth plans now around the world for women's rugby, but they have built them themselves from ground up. We're not coming in sort of with a helicopter view imposing that, and then we'll try and align our support behind and alongside that.
Sue Anstiss:What is the potential for growth with women's rugby right now, do you feel?
Sally Horrox:So you can answer that from many different angles. But if you take participation, at the moment, those unions I've just talked about have just put all their heads together to come up with what they're calling the Participation Growth Manifesto or a growth commitment, and you'll see this around the World Cup this summer, as we took the view. Well, let's listen to them. This is not for us. By the way, I'm all in favour. I've worked with FIFA and UEFA and there's great commitments for doubling and tripling the size of the women's game. I'm absolutely behind that, but rather than us impose it from above, certainly from my perspective, we needed to understand the appetite from the base up. So from a participation point of view, I think there's huge potential and if you think about the game we have the sevens game, which actually is a spearhead for growth in women's rugby it's easier to get the numbers. It's easier to get in countries that don't perhaps have the economic base or the number of girls or women coming through. It's an easier game to get hold of and have a go at. There's T1 rugby as well. So participation for girls is tracking faster than any other growth segment in the sport and it's tracking at sort of. I think we're multiplying it eight to 10% growth per annum. So if it continues at that, it will go from being women are 25% of the playing base. We'll hit over 30, 33% over this next cycle. So why can't it become equity and gender numbers 50, 50 over time? We haven't got that commitment yet, but we've certainly got that 10% year-on-year growth.
Sally Horrox:And then, at the other end of the sport, in terms of the professional and commercial development, there's huge appetite and that's probably where, again, because of my experience, a lot of my focus is it's on visibility, it's on audience build and it's on audience build and it's on that world-class world cups, the platform that will be created this summer with rugby world cup 2025, which, in my opinion, will be that pivot point, in the same way that 2019 for the fifa women's world cup in france was. And then this pathway to professionalism, the work we're doing on investment, on res reshaping, on supporting unions to really take advantage of you know, how they develop their leagues and competitions and the professional game. I think it's going to provide huge opportunity and growth. And I sit here, obviously in America, saying that to you, having spent the last week at fundraising dinners, sold out stadiums, conversations and meetings with Alona Ma, who is obviously working in partnership with USA Rugby to grow the game.
Sally Horrox:We go to the United Nations tomorrow to talk on the same topic, also on sport for development and how it changes women and girls' lives, in partnership with Child Fund. But these are all the aspects to building a stronger, more powerful sport and rugby. You know rugby itself is doing a great job. You know more power to its elbow. We just need to keep working together.
Sue Anstiss:And I would say, for more details of the Women's Rugby World Cup. I would recommend people listen to the brilliant episode with your colleague, sarah Massey, who's the Managing Director for the Women's Rugby World Cup 2025. And I think that was in the last series, so series 19. But you do seem to be at every sports industry event I have attended in the last few months, so doing a huge amount of work for advocacy for women's rugby and the women's rugby World Cup. So I guess one of my questions is how do you I think I did ask you this last time I saw you how did you manage to fit all that in and and do all you're doing too? It does feel not. How do you not get overwhelmed? But it does feel like it's a kind of huge role and a figurehead piece that you've got, as well as collaborating and leading, as you've said.
Sally Horrox:Well, I do take the advocacy piece really seriously and, I suppose, made a really intentional decision to do that and I have the support of my colleagues because obviously I have my own work plan. I have KPIs and performance indicators and targets to hit. We all in a corporate environment, in a modern sports business, you have to be held accountable for what you are tasked with delivering and the money that you're spending, frankly as well. Are you doing the right thing for the sport? Are you spending your time in the right places? And we've agreed that visibility and advocacy at the right time in the right places is hugely important because we are still at a relatively early stage in rugby 40 years old, I think it's 40. We're in our 10th edition of the World Cup this year. So, choosing to be on those platforms, preparing well it's a job of work if you're going to do it properly, to make sure, as you said, with Sarah Massey, who is a brilliant leader and is doing a fabulous job and is part of the management team that I'm part of. It's a really important part of what we do because it raises profile, it changes perceptions, it puts us on the international stage, it unlocks investment. A lot of the work is around our brand partnerships. I sit alongside our brand partners. You're in sales mode, you're in business development mode, day in, day out. So the support of the business is hugely important.
Sally Horrox:And on a personal level, I have a fantastic husband and four great kids and I honestly couldn't do what I do if he wasn't rock solid. He's a massive sports fan and he's a teacher and a rugby coach and he is very much HQ home-based, whereas I am on the road a lot of the time. But our relationship and our family life has been sort of built with that as a given. That is the way we have always operated and the kids are a big part of that. We try and travel as much as we can. They come to as many events as they can. They enjoy and support me hugely, so I hope I can sort of give a bit of that back to them.
Sue Anstiss:I would just say it's an important thing to shout out sometimes, isn't it? I feel a lot around motherhood and women working in sport and that challenge, but it does take a balance and a level of each stepping forward, stepping back in terms of partnership, of raising a family and working in an industry, and I'm so similar to you that my husband took that home-based role many years when we had our third child. But I think sometimes it's not talked about and women feeling they how can I do it? All you know, but actually a lot of it comes down to the support that you have at home to enable you to do that.
Sally Horrox:And I think it's you've got to decide what your big bets are. You've got to decide what it is you're going after, and maybe it's easier to say that now, 20, 30 years on, when you're feeling a bit more confident. Maybe I wasn't able to do that as openly when I was first setting off, but, as I found out, there are so many priorities. You can't do it all well, you can have a go, but you need to know what's going to shift the dial and really get behind those two or three things. I always try and think right this week or this month or this year, what two or three things are going to create the most impact in the work that we're doing.
Sally Horrox:And hold yourself account to that, because certainly in my job you're a mile wide and an inch deep and that can be dangerous. You can get lost if you're not careful, and if the balance tips too far with your family and you're exhausted and you can't find much joy in life, then you're really in trouble. So that's where you have to keep in my case. Need others to keep reminding you of that? Um, but you've got to find the joy and want to get up in the morning and, um, if you love your job.
Sue Anstiss:You're so much better at it absolutely and just finally, if you could go back and talk to your younger self as you're starting out in the sports industry, what, what advice would you share today? Do you you think, looking back at your career?
Sally Horrox:Oh, what a great question. It would be to think about what's special about you. What can you uniquely do that is going to make you different or stand out or offer something special, and that doesn't have to be a stellar academic qualification or a CV that has a remarkable job title on it remarkable job title on it. Now I know I've been fortunate and, through a lot of hard work, have progressed up that ladder to get to some of those positions. But I think if I'd have realized earlier on that your ability to talk to people, to connect, to listen, to build relationships, that curiosity that I have learned along the way, has served me so well, if I'd have known at a younger age that those qualities, as well as academic rigor and as well as some great work experience, would serve me well. Those actually are, personally, for me, I think, at the heart of the success that I've had along the way.
Sally Horrox:Getting along with people, people wanting to do business with you, to sit across the dinner table and to trust you actually and to like you, is hugely important. I'm not sure I mean it takes a lot of confidence for a young person to understand that and to believe that. But if I could have just had a little bit more of that at a younger age, or certainly for my children, for example, and the young people that I meet. I think that's what I'd probably try and talk to them about. On our fridge at home, we all scribble on it and it just says be curious, be courageous. And then it says be amazing. And I just try and say to them and say to myself remember, that and that will serve you well.
Sue Anstiss:Thank you to Sally and wishing her well for the incredibly exciting next few months ahead for women's rugby. There are over 200 episodes of the game changes podcast that are free to listen to on all platforms or from our website at fearlesswomencouk. Guests include elite athletes, along with coaches, entrepreneurs, broadcasters, scientists, journalists and ceos like sally all women who are changing the game in sport. As well as listening to all the podcasts on the website, you can also find out more about the women in sport. As well as listening to all the podcasts on the website, you can also find out more about the Women's Sport Collective, a free, inclusive community for all women working in sport. We now have over 13,000 members across the world, so please do come and join us.
Sue Anstiss:The whole of my book Game On the Unstoppable Rise of Women's Sport is also free to listen to on the podcast. Every episode of series 13 is me reading a chapter of the book. Thank you once again to Sport England for backing the Game Changers and the Women's Sport Collective with a National Lottery Award, and to Sam Walker at what Goes On Media, who does such an excellent job as our executive producer. Thank you also to my brilliant colleague at fearless women, kate hannon. You can find the game changers on all podcast platforms, so please do follow us now to ensure you don't miss out on future episodes. Come and say hello on social media, where you'll find me on LinkedIn and Instagram at Sue Anstis, the game changes Fearless women in sport.