My daughter wanted to play softball too. She wasn’t alone, with 24 girls signing up (more than enough for a team), but the programme was dropped. No one wanted to coach the girls. The only offers of help were for the boys’ team, which went ahead.
These differences between boys and girls matter. Play is one of the most important things in life. It’s not just for kids. It’s not just for boys. Play is joy, freedom, experimentation, and at its best, it’s shared. Sport, at its core, is just structured play. But for too many girls, the opportunity to play quietly disappears as they grow up.
For my daughter, it was the same story when she wanted to try basketball. There were no local teams for girls her age. So in the end, we took matters into our own hands and created a space to shoot hoops, play and have fun.
It took time, energy and a lot of effort, and it helped that I’m a bit of a sports tragic and was determined to make it happen.
But not all families have that option. Not all families have the time, connections, or confidence to step in. And that’s where so many girls quietly drop out; not because they’ve lost interest, but because the system makes it too hard to stay.
But this isn’t just about access. It’s also about culture. I’ve coached junior rugby for years, and one of the best players I ever had was a girl. She was so good, she was playing in the boys’ team. She was fast, fearless, and smart on the field. But for the first three weeks, the boys wouldn’t pass to her. When I asked why, they said – almost without thinking – “Because she’s a girl.” It wasn’t malice. It was something they just inherently believed. That’s unconscious bias in action.
Once we talked about it, things changed. They started passing to her, playing alongside her, treating her like any other teammate. But it really drove home how early these assumptions form, and how important it is to help shift them.
Girls want the same things from sport that boys do: to have fun and be with their mates. If those things are missing, they’ll walk – and the data backs that up. Recent research from 2degrees found that for Kiwi girls who dropped out of youth sport, the most common reason was that other priorities like school or work took over (45%), followed closely by no longer enjoying it (40%) and finding it too expensive (31%).
Boys will often stick it out with a bad coach or an average team. Girls won’t. But when they’re in a space where they feel valued, supported, and connected, they stay.
And here’s the kicker: when girls stay in sport, it sets them up for life. Last year, I heard about a US study that stuck with me. It found that 94% of women in C-suite roles played sport growing up – not at elite levels, just sport.
A more recent Deloitte study found that 69% of high-earning female leaders played competitive sport in their youth, and 85% of them said the skills they learned – resilience, teamwork and confidence – were crucial to their professional success.
Sport teaches you how to keep showing up, how to bounce back when things don’t go your way. It gives you space to build resilience, because where else in life do you get the chance to practise that over and over again? You learn how to win with grace, how to lose with empathy, and what it feels like when someone doesn’t treat you that way. A good coach will teach you those lessons, and they stay with you for life.
That’s why we need to reframe the conversation. This isn’t just about keeping girls active. It’s about keeping doors open. To confidence. To leadership. To lifelong movement. To play.
That’s what we’re trying to do at BNZ Kāhu, New Zealand’s first all-women-owned, led, and coached professional sports team.
Our games aren’t just matches; they’re celebrations. There’s music, dancing, giveaways and a family-friendly vibe that even my son prefers. He once told me he likes attending women’s games better because “no one’s yelling and everyone’s just in a good mood”. That says a lot.
We’ve also launched Wings Camps: pressure-free, play-first spaces where girls can try something new without worrying about how good they are. It’s not about creating elite athletes. It’s about creating space to move, to laugh and to play.
Play doesn’t stop at childhood. Or at least, it shouldn’t. I didn’t learn to skateboard until I was 50. I bought a board and learned alongside my kids. I was the only parent on the ramp, and the kids cheered me on. They called me Mumma G. That’s what play gives us: joy, freedom, and the courage to try something new.
It’s been great to see more attention on the issue of girls dropping out of sport, and initiatives like 2degrees’ SupportHer Club – which offers practical tips to help keep girls in sport – and Basketball New Zealand’s Girls Got Game are starting to shift things. But talking isn’t enough. We need to keep asking girls: What would make you stay? What would make you come back? Then we need to act on what they tell us.
Yes, there are still barriers like the lack of access and the unconscious bias I’ve just described. But there are also solutions. And more of us aren’t waiting for permission anymore. We’re building the spaces ourselves for our daughters, and for those who want to come along for the ride.
Because this is bigger than sport. It’s about creating a world where girls feel free to play, to lead, and to belong. And when they do, they don’t just stick around, they thrive. And when that happens, we all win.
