See it. Be it.

“We want to discover and develop the next generation of female sports broadcasters” said Dr. Katie Thirlaway, the Dean of the Cardiff Met School of Sport and Health Sciences, and the woman responsible for coming up with the idea of a Sport Broadcast MSc Degree back in 2016. Katie recruited me from the BBC Sports Department to set up and run this new course, and she said she wanted, among other things, “to create a programme which openly encouraged women into sports broadcasting & helped address the gender balance in the sports media industry”.??No pressure.

Five years on, I guess this article is a chance to reflect on whether we have achieved what Katie asked for. An opportunity to shine a light on how our female graduates have done since our programme began in Autumn 2017… it’s also proof, if you needed it, of how each set of graduates help inspire the next, holding the door open for those coming through. Because you can’t be it if you can’t see it. That was the phrase we kept hearing as we launched our Sport Broadcast MSc. Back then, you couldn't see it...not without really looking.

So, in 2018, to make sure the students (all the students) on our course could properly “see it”, we organised a conference at Cardiff Met University, with the help of the NUJ Training Wales organisation, called “Women in Sport Journalism” and invited some of the most inspiring women operating in the UK sports media to join us. Sports journalists and authors like Anna Kessel, Carolyn Hitt, reporters and presenters such as Lauren Jenkins, Beth Fisher and Dot Davies, football pundit Nia Jones, S4c Head of Sport Sue Butler, Cerys Furlong from Chwarae Teg, Zena Chandler-Burnell from NUJ Training Wales and Sgorio Football Director Lowri Charles. They joined panels, gave keynote speeches, chaired discussions, spoke to our students (male and female), debated the issues facing women in sports media at that time, shared horror stories from the past and pitched solutions for a fairer, more equal workspace in the future.

We wanted our female students to leave our course ready to take on the industry but also fully prepared for what they were going into. If they knew it, they could do it. In the audience that day, back in 2018, were two sports broadcast students, Alexandra Richards and Kay Davies. This is a tweet Kay posted 2 years later…

Kay Davies is now a full time digital content producer at BT Sport. She's worked as a Live Events producer for Vinco Sports and for a BBC 5Live Sport Relief campaign.

When Kay was a student I used to show her cohort clips of the BT Sport No Filter series. Kay now works as an AP making content for the BT No Filter Series.

Alexandra did her placement with Sky Sports on the Netball World Cup in 2019. Then she worked on the Cricket World Cup for IMG. Then she got a job with Sunset & Vine working on their rugby and cycling output. Alex has just signed a contract with BBC Sport in Cardiff and is now working on their Football and Rugby output. She produced her first ScrumV feature last month and is currently working on the Six Nations.

So 3 years on from that conference, 4 years on from the launch of our course, and 5 years since Katie hired me, where are the rest of our female graduates now? and what sort of jobs are they getting?

Let’s start with the Class of 2019. Sioned Dafydd, is currently presenting Sgorio on S4c. She interviews the likes of Jess Fishlock, Gemma Grainger, Aaron Ramsey and Gareth Bale every week. This is a job she dreamed about when she was young. Sioned was in the room for that WISJ conference back in 2018 and actually chaired one of the talks. Sioned was pitch-side reporter for our first ever Cardiff Met Sport TV show in 2017. When Wales travelled to Prague last month for a crucial World Cup Qualifier, Sioned was the pitch-side reporter for our national channel.

Another from Sioned’s cohort is Abi Davies. Whilst with us Abi did her placement at Sky Sports on the PDC darts (thanks to my old Sky bosses Georgie Faulkner and Rory Hopkins who kindly squeezed her in to Alexandra Palace in 2018). Abi impressed, and then won a contract as a production assistant at Sky. She worked her way up the Soccer Saturday production team and is now a reporter on their flagship live show every Saturday afternoon. She also covers the Darts for Talksport and during the summer got a gig presenting a Euros footy show from a swanky rooftop in Portugal alongside England legend Paul Ince. Another reason Abi flew so far, and so fast, is that while she was at Cardiff Met, she took on the role of Media Manager for Cardiff Met FC, and held press conferences, wrote match reports, ran their social media accounts and created regular video content. They had never had a female media manager before. She changed the role, revolutionised it. Abi was the BBC's lead reporter at the Wales Snooker Open this month.

Abi and Sioned, absolute game changers.

A few weeks ago a production company got in touch, they were looking for pitch-side reporters for the Women’s Football Super League Highlights show and they had been given my contact. They said they’d heard we had access to good, young, talented female football reporters. News travels fast in our industry. I gave them the emails for Abi and Sioned, but Abi was busy on Sky Sports duty and Sioned was in Estonia with Wales reporting for S4c. So I passed them the details of two current students, who were part of the 2020 cohort, Gabriella Jukes and Darcey Morris. A week later Gabriella and Darcey were pitch-side at Reading and Watford Football Grounds reporting on the highest level of Women’s football in the UK. Their interviews were used on the BBC WSL highlights show that night. Gabriella is now presenting the new Ospreys Insider show. She’s the host of Swansea City TV and has been reporting on the FC Cymru show for Eat Sleep Media and pitch-side reporting for S4c. Meanwhile Darcey is working in production for Whisper Films and recently worked on a Formula1 shoot with Tom Cruise and David Coulthard. Darcey is also presenting for Dragons Rugby TV. Gabriella and Darcey also launched a podcast while they were on the course called “She Has A Goal in Mind” which features in-depth interviews with inspiring women from across the Wales & UK Sporting landscape. It was recently named in the Top 35 Women's Sports Podcasts of 2021. Darcey and Gabriella haven’t even graduated yet, but they are already using their production skills to help inform and inspire the next generation of female sports broadcasters.

But it’s not just "on-air" talent we have helped along their way. We always said we wanted to encourage our female students to work in production and technical roles too. This is where Sophie Scherschel led the way. And where Sophie went, many have followed. Sophie’s first external work placement (students have to complete 15 days with an external company as part of our course) was at the World Rugby 7s in Hong Kong. She was there to help with graphics, but by Day 2 on the job, she was given a go at vision mixing the live feed. Her next placement was at Livewire Sports. As soon as her placement had finished they offered her a job. One of the company directors told me they called her a “unicorn”, so rare & desirable was her skill- set and work ethic. Sophie is now an established producer at Livewire, looking after Premier League and WSL programmes, and it’s because of her we now have 2 male graduates (Tim Fenney and Jack Jones) from the course also in full time positions at Livewire Sports. The girls are holding the door open for the boys. Also in that first cohort was Giorgia Rescigno. A force of nature, now a BBC researcher, a presenter and content creator on the BBC Sesh platform, Giorgia, also runs her own events company, Letz Share, and was named in the top 35 entrepreneurs under 35 in Wales. Giorgia did her work placement shadowing Clare Balding on the Channel 4 2018 Winter Olympics coverage. If you want to be the best, you have to learn from the best. See it. Be it.

When it comes to recruiting new female students we only have to tell an applicant about Sioned, Abi, Sophie & Giorgia and they are interested. Their success and visibility gives our course credibility. In the second cohort, a second wave of young talent came through, I’ve mentioned Kay and Alex, but there was Mica Moore too. Mica was a Commonwealth athlete in 2014 on track, an Olympic athlete in 2018, on ice, at the Winter Olympics. That same year she started the Sport Broadcast MSc. She did her work placement at the European Youth Olympics in Ukraine. Mica impressed so much she was then sent to athletics events all over the UK and Europe as a social media reporter, carving out a niche as an Instagram specialist, trackside at events bringing their social media feeds to life with interviews and vibrant content. She has been presenting on a show called The Welsh Sport Insider for Sport Wales and on FC Cymru for the FAW of late. She has over 25,000 Instagram followers. She is also training for another shot at the Olympics this winter. She is an unstoppable force. This year she was part of a Team GB filming shoot in the Austrian mountains. And producing the shoot for Livewire Sports...Sophie Scherschel. Of course!

Mica didn't compete at the Winter Olympics this year, instead she worked as a co-commentator for Eurosport / Discovery on their live coverage. And totally smashed it.

Rachel Jones came next. A talented all-rounder, a Welsh speaker, a qualified journalist and a shoot-edit content creator, Rachel was quite shy when she arrived. By the time she left she was our lead producer and most competent live director. She graduated with a 1st last year and took a 6month contract with Eat Sleep Media, then took the option to go freelance and has been working non-stop for the likes of Loop Productions and MatchRoom Sports on Darts, Snooker and Pool. She also operates the camera on the Cardiff Devils Livestream. Matchroom Sports were so impressed with Rachel they got in touch to see if we had any other promising young directors; Joe Thomas, from the 2020 cohort is now working full time for them. Another example of our female graduates holding the door open for the boys.

Also in Rachel's cohort was Rosalind Slade. Ros now works in Motorsports and is one of the most sought after social media managers in Formula 2. She runs the account for the Virtuosi Team and has become a master of Instagram content.

Another one to watch is Ali Hampson Silk. Ali, part of the 2020/21 cohort, is another F1 expert, and Football and Golf for the matter, and this summer she secured a role as one of the “Rising Hosts” on The Hundred cricket. Ali has natural broadcast skills and also set up her own podcast called “Generation Sport” interviewing the next generation of British sports stars. Ali just got a full time job as a digital producer at Sky Sports. This sort of news no longer surprises me. Sky Sports were so impressed with Abi Davies in 2018, they were equally impressed by Alexandra Richards in 2019. They now get in touch with us whenever they are recruiting. Our female graduates are doing such incredible things the path ahead for the new crop is brighter than ever.

In this year’s cohort we have 7 female students, our highest number yet. Charlotte, Jo, Nesta, Caoimhe, Caitlin, Jenny, Molly…

Jenny is another elite athlete, and doing our course on a part-time basis. She starred in the Transatlantic Storytelling documentary film we made with our global partners in America last year. Caitlin plays rugby for Wales. This is great for our students as it means we always have high profile athletes to interview without even leaving the classroom!

Jo Penrose has just secured the Media Internship role with Team Wales and will be working as their media assistant from now right through the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham. This is the same role Sioned had back in 2018 on the Gold Coast Games. Charlotte Carver starts a placement with Cardiff City in the new year. Caoimhe is heading up our Varsity coverage. Jenny has been making content for Welsh Athletics. Nesta is out this week filming a behind the scenes feature with our netball team, Molly is working with the basketball club.

We had a a guest speaker this week, the irrepressible Laura Jane Jones, one of a new breed of super talented producer / presenter / creators. After the session, Laura (known as LJ) said she has a good feeling about this year's group and expects big things. No pressure girls.

LJ is in regular contact with lots of our female graduates, giving them feedback, mentoring, encouraging. That's how it is now. And lots of our older graduates are now in contact with our current students. Sharing contacts and opportunities. Each one, teach one.

So, have we created what Katie asked for 5 years ago? I think so.

How do I know? Because we can see it.