Welcome to The Wrap, a weekly podcast covering women's sports news.
Bez, what have we got around the grounds this week?
Aussie sailor Lisa Blair has become the first person to sail around New Zealand solo.
How crazy is that, that she's the first one ever?
I don't know if I thought that someone else had, but when I heard that she was the first, I was like, wow.
Do you think there was uphill and downhill parts? I just feel like...
I think we need to address this later.
North and South. FC Barcelona have won their third Champions League title
and Jessica Hull has broken the national record for the 1500 metres.
For the key story, we'll chat about the findings of the largest ever survey
looking at fan engagement and equity in women's sports around the globe
and what it means for women's sport going forward.
I love the head teller.
My name is Chloe Dalton and I'm joined every week on the show by my co-host Bez, Erin Morton.
We're recording on Gadigal land.
Let's take a look around the grounds.
In sailing, Australian sailor Lisa Blair, as you said, Bez,
has become the first person to sail solo around New Zealand in just 16 days and 23 hours.
She's the first person to have set the Mono Hull solo sailing course,
travelling from Auckland back to Auckland, which is over 2,200 nautical miles.
Upon finishing the journey, she said,
I'm so incredibly proud to have become the first person to sail solo around New Zealand.
I faced all conditions and sailed through two storms on my journey before finishing in Auckland Harbour.
I think you need to put a question to her about uphill and downhill.
Uphill and downhill.
When you're going south, is it faster than going north?
A bit of momentum about it.
The curvature of the globe.
I know they said spine for some reason then.
She had a bit of scoliosis.
Someone sent out.
Lisa completed the voyage in her yacht, Climate Action Now,
using her platform to campaign for the environment.
It's a pretty cool boat.
She's got post-it notes, messages from the public,
and her boat is covered in post-it notes that people have submitted about climate change.
It's such a cool idea, and it's really colourful.
In her most recent journey, she says she encountered floating plastics in pristine waters,
off the southern coast of New Zealand.
That's the downhill bit.
So she's campaigning to raise awareness about the destructive impact
and extent of plastic pollution in the far reaches of the ocean.
I need to stop laughing.
Because climate change is very serious.
It's absolutely very serious.
We're pulling it back together.
I'm a firm believer that we can change and so undertake these records
to show that together we can create a better future.
It just starts with one positive climate action.
I love that quote from her.
Lisa is the current world record holder for sailing nonstop unassisted around Antarctica,
and in cool news, her Antarctica journey has been made in a documentary coming out mid-July.
Sorry that sentence was so hard for me.
Can't wait for that.
I think reading about this was amazing.
The actual feed itself is amazing, but I love the light that she's shining on climate change.
It is such an important topic right now that a lot of people just seem to be ignoring.
It won't go away.
In athletics, Australian runner Jessica will not go away also as well.
She set a new national record in the women's 1500 metres to finish second at the Eugene Diamond League 2024 event
with a time of 3 minutes, 55.97 seconds on Sunday.
She was less than three seconds behind the race winner, who was pretty much out on her own.
And Jess was in a little three-way battle, which she won.
She became the first Australian athlete to clock under 3.56 in the women's 1500.
In the process, she also set a new Oceania record.
Hal's effort in the USA was also the fifth fastest time this year.
It's a great confidence booster for Paris.
I was so consistent last year at 3.57, and that got me seventh in Budapest.
If I look at the landscape of the sport and look at the times that I would need to medal,
I need to be consistent at that mid to low 3.50.
So getting a 3.55 on the board today gives me confidence.
And I think we'll find a little bit more throughout the season.
I think it's quite cool.
If she gets to run those times,
there's a lot of strategy and tactics involved in those races.
So if she can hit those times and be up there.
And I think get it out of the argy-bargy in the pack.
Yeah, get out of there.
Yeah, I reckon she's a really good medal chance now.
In Rugby Union, the story that,
Bez wasn't looking forward to covering this one, unfortunately.
Not our best week.
Not our best week.
For the Wallaroos.
New Zealand really outclassed the Wallaroos in the final game of the Pac-4 series,
downing the Aussies 67-19 to lift the O'Reilly Cup.
It looked promising early when Black Fern's player of the match,
Kaipo Olsen-Baker, opened the scoring in the fifth minute.
And the Aussies answered back straight away through an Arabella-McKenzie try
to keep the scores locked at 7-0.
But, Bez, from the seventh minute on, it was all New Zealand.
With the Black Ferns scoring 48 unanswered points,
which would help them to a total of 11 tries for the match.
That's got to hurt.
You're silent over there.
I'm going to stop giving you a chance to say anything.
I'll just continue.
And make the story end quickly.
Wallaroos coach Joe Yap said the area of the game that let them down was the breakdown.
When we're talking breakdown, for people who don't know rugby.
The tackle contest.
So after a tackle's been made, the tackle contest is over the ball.
So unlike rugby league, rugby union is a constant challenge for the possession of the ball.
So at every single moment, the possession can change.
The breakdown is that moment when, if you want to get kind of simple,
everyone bashes each other over the top of the footy.
Really poor there.
Like we, I don't think we carried well enough to dominate that contact zone.
And then when you don't carry hard and win the contact zone,
you give them a shot at the ball and they were, they're very good at it.
The result means the Aussies finish bottom of the pack for table winless in their three games.
And they'll be now be playing in the second tier of WXV later in the year,
alongside South Africa, Scotland, Italy, and two teams yet to be confirmed.
This means the Wallaroos have one final opportunity to qualify for the
2025 Rugby World Cup with the top six ranked non-qualified teams
at the end of WXV 2024 qualifying for the tournament.
They better be because we're going, we've planned a holiday.
And Alessia Russo head up was the only thing able to separate the A-League All-Stars
and the Arsenal women's team in Melbourne on Friday night with the Gunners walking away
with a 1-0 victory.
The 39th minute goal came courtesy of a direct cross from,
young Gunnar, Viviane Lea, all three of Arsenal's Matildas, Steph Catley,
Kyra Cooney-Cross, and Caitlin Ford started the match in front of 42,000 very excited fans.
And I'm so glad all three of them are starting.
Yeah, they had to.
It would have been silly not to.
Matilda's legend and former Arsenal goalkeeper Lydia Williams was replaced just before the break
to a standing ovation around Marvel Stadium.
Wasn't that moment so beautiful and so well-deserved?
I don't, I mean, she's not, I mean,
maybe they, we won't see her again.
She said only international football.
She did not say she was retiring from the A-Leagues,
but I think it was a nice time to give her her moment.
Yeah, it was a beautiful moment.
It was beautiful.
The All-Stars had a final chance to equalize in the 89th minute when Hannah Wilkinson went
through one-on-one with Naomi Williams, but it was brilliantly saved.
And overseas, FC Barcelona have defeated LA Carpenters' Lyon side 2-0 to claim their
third UEFA Champions League title.
strikes from Aitana Bonmati and Alexia Puteas proved vital for the Catalans in front of
over 50,000 supporters.
The result means Barca have immortalized themselves in Spanish football history.
They've won every single trophy available this season, completing an historic quadruple
Copa de la Reina, Supercopa and Champions League titles.
They become the first Spanish women's side to do so.
They're pretty unstoppable, aren't they?
They go all right.
They go all right.
We also just have to stop and talk about Aitana Bonmati for a second.
She's won multiple league, domestic cup and Champions League titles since 2020.
She won the World Cup in 2023.
The Nations League this year was named best player in both tournaments.
She won the 2023 Ballon d'Or, best FIFA women's player.
She was the 2023 Champions League player of the season, UEFA Women's Player of the Season,
World Soccer and Globe Soccer, best women's player in the World Awards.
And she was named player of the match in the Champions League final.
The only thing missing, Bez?
Olympic gold medal.
They're quite nice Olympic gold medals if you can come by them.
And I reckon she'd be pretty keen to grab one of those in Paris.
She can have a silver.
In the super netball, the Melbourne Vixens have handed the West Coast Fever their first
defeat of the season, beating them at 76 to 65 on their home court.
The Vixens executed a seemingly flawless game plan in the top of the table clash with an
exceptional performance from match MVP Kiera Austin shooting at 95%.
While the defence shut down one of the Fever and Super Netball's best goalshooter in Janelle
That's no easy feat.
The Fever and the Vixens are now equal on 25 points heading into round eight of the
I feel like they're kind of putting a little bit of a gap on the rest of the crew.
Let's take a look at the key story.
In a bit of Survey Says news.
You're excited about this one.
You've been talking about this all week?
I'm excited though because I just love there's some really amazing stats in here that just
need to be shared far and wide so people actually understand what's going on.
And if you've been listening to the podcast for a while, you know how much we love stats.
So SurveyMonkey and Parity, a sports marketing and sponsorship platform dedicated to closing
the gender income and opportunity gap in professional sports.
I think we need to pair up with them.
They're doing some good things.
They recently shared their findings from the largest,
global survey ever conducted into fan engagement and equity in women's sports.
The results come from over 14,000 adults in the US, Australia, Canada, France, Germany,
Spain and the UK and were aimed at identifying key trends in how people view, consume and
engage with women's sports today.
So there's about, I think we've got about five key findings today.
Hit us with the first, Bez.
More people are watching women's sport, which we know, like we're all aware of that, but
I guess how many more?
So in the UK, 36%.
Australia, 34% and Spain, 32%.
So over a third in those three key markets of women's sports fans are watching more women's
sports than they did the previous year.
That's a pretty impressive increase in 12 months.
23% of men watch women's sports daily or weekly compared to 15% of women, which I thought
was really interesting.
So I think that's where I really think that women watching women is where we can really
make bigger strides.
But I do think we also have to be careful because that's what so many of the men come
in our comment section and say, I get pretty triggered by that comment.
So many of them, so many of them come in and blame women.
When women start watching and buying tickets.
I guess I totally hear that, but, and I don't, it's not a rebuttal, but it is a space where
I will take that point.
So yeah, but yeah, 23% of men watch women's sport daily or weekly.
And 30% of men around the world are watching.
More women's sport in 2024 compared to 2023.
So a third of men around all those markets.
Number two, women athletes are influential.
It's in capitals.
Tell me something I don't already know.
It's in capitals.
88% of respondents believe that professional women athletes are somewhat or highly impactful
role models for young women.
Fans who watch women's sport daily or weekly are 3.5 times more likely to buy a product
promoted by a woman athlete than another type of influencer.
That is a huge stat.
That is a massive stat.
When you think about some of the followings that these influencers have, I don't understand
I don't get what they do.
I just don't understand them.
So, but, and they, they obviously have that following.
And so brands invest in them because they think of the following, but here's the stats
three and a half times more likely.
Number three, the people want equity also in capitals.
More than 50% of respondents believe that brands are not investing enough in women's
sports compared with men's sport.
Instagram is where it's at for finding.
And following women's sport and us Aussies lead the way with 42% of Australians surveyed
likely to follow women's sport accounts on social media.
Followed by Canada on 39% and the US on 38%.
I love that for us.
Number four, we can't get enough of football and tennis.
They are the most watched women's sports globally, unless you're American where basketball reigns
supreme right now.
Thank you, Kaylin Clark, Angel Reese and friends.
Number five, accessibility remains a barrier.
Our precious time is a factor when it comes to watching women's sport and women are more
likely than men to report lacking sufficient time to watch women's sport.
So 42% of women versus 39% of men say they don't have time to watch women's sport.
And this is probably when you brought up that statement earlier around there's an opportunity
for more women to be watching women's sport, which I completely agree with.
But I think when these trolls come into the comments and say it as an argument, there
is no consideration of the barriers that have been put in place for decades to prevent women's
sport from feeling like they can engage in sport.
And there's continuing barriers around women traditionally taking on more domestic chores
around the household, a whole range of other factors, right?
I totally agree with you.
The other main factor of accessibility is cost, especially in the 18 to 34-year-old bracket.
We do find that often women's sport is paywalled.
You know, you do have to pay to watch it.
So that's another thing that we need to take into account.
Men's sport does tend to be on free-to-air.
Leela Srinivasan, CEO of Parity, summed it up.
All well, saying,
Ooh, great key story.
Let's take a look.
Out what to watch.
The Hoggy Roos will play their next game of the FIH Pro League this Wednesday against
So far, the Aussies have won four and lost four games.
The match starts at 12.30 a.m. AEST and is live and free on 7+.
The Tillys are back on home soil with two friendly matches against China PR.
With both matches officially sold out, they're set to be crackers as the Matildas' final
matches before the Olympics.
The first game kicks off this Friday in Adelaide at 8.10 p.m. AEST with the next friendly
in Sydney on Monday, the 3rd of June, kicking off at 7.40 p.m. AEST.
You can watch both games live on Network 10.
Do we have tickets?
I have my first day of AFLW pre-season training that day, so I need to work out what the go
The women's Aussie Sevens team will face Ireland this Saturday in the opening match of Madrid
The tournament runs until the 2nd of June with the Aussies eyeing off the women's Sevens
Championship title.
This first match kicks off at 9.51 local time or 5.30.
It will be all live on StanSport.
On Saturday, the Sunshine Coast Lightning hosts the West Coast Fever at Uni of Sunshine
Now the Fever will be looking to bounce back from their first loss of the season against
a team steadily climbing the Super Netball table.
The match starts at 7 p.m. AEST and is live on KO and Fox Netball.
And the Australian women's deaf football team will play against the U.S. women's deaf football
team this Saturday.
It's June the 1st in Denver, Colorado.
It marks the first time a game like this will be televised as part of a doubleheader with
the U.S. women's national team.
The match kicks off at 2 p.m. local time or 6 a.m. Sunday AEST and can be streamed on
And we're going to be chatting to one of the players.
The episode will drop this Thursday.
One of the players from the Australian deaf football team.
See you next week, friend.