Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 27 April 2021

Joint Committee on Media, Tourism, Arts, Culture, Sport and the Gaeltacht

Issues Facing Women in Sport: Discussion

Ms Mary O'Connor:

I might come in on the streaming issue.

The pandemic last year expedited the use of streaming for games. Now that there is such powerful equipment, such as handheld devices like phones, people are becoming increasingly innovative around streaming. That can only auger well for female sport. What struck me, when the pandemic hit first and there was no live sport, was that when sports shows were trying to fill the void and were going back to archive footage, there were very few female sport archives into which they could delve, beyond footage of the likes of Sonia O'Sulllivan and Katie Taylor.

The pandemic has shown that we can be very innovative. The streaming of sport is becoming more common. That is going to help the visibility of women's sport at a local as well as national level. That type of work should be supported. Last year, the Federation of Irish Sport took on the opportunity to showcase sport, working with national and governing bodies around specific events and games to highlight what could be done with live streaming. We need to see more of that. We will certainly be leading on that in supporting organisations in the live streaming of both male and female sport.

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