Siren #137: WNBL finals action and Tillies time! Plus book club and Siren x ABC Sport
A Women in Sport Collective
Are you ready for the WNBL finals?!
After a thrilling season with only a game sequentially separating each of the top four from each other, the finals get underway tonight when the Southside Flyers take on the Melbourne Boomers.
It is going to be an electric series and is must attend/see/hear hoops! Be sure to get the brand new WNBL app to follow all the excitement!
The WNBL is growing each season and driving more fan engagement, looking at new initiatives to connect to broader audiences and championing important causes that support women like the fantastic Fighting Period Poverty Round that the league introduced last season.
In this issue, our fabulous Siren Sport intern Pyper Denneman caught up with head of WNBL, Christy Collier-Hill to talk all about fan engagement and growth.
Now of course there is another important match taking place tonight. Our Tillies are back on home soil taking on Uzbekistan in Melbourne and are just one game away from qualifying for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games!
Talk about having too much women’s sport goodness to choose from! JK—we can never have too much women’s sports goodness to choose from!
And we can never have too much women’s sports merch to choose from, so it was absolutely thrilling to see Nike and Football Australia finally release the Matildas goalkeeper kit we’ve all been asking for!
Now it might only be the purple and not the iconic black, but our collective voices were heard that there is an audience for women’s sports merch. And that is a song we’ll keep singing—mostly because these kits sold out in 15 minutes!
It’s great but as our friend Samantha Lewis says: let us give you our money! We hope this is another lesson for sports to keep working to understand the fanbase and give us what we want.
So wherever your sporting heart may take you tonight, and during the ongoing excitement of women’s sports in 2024, we know you’re in for an absolute treat! Go women’s sport!
Fans first: How the WNBL is focussing on new initiatives to grow the fanbase
By Pyper Denneman
Siren intern Pyper Denneman speaks to head of the WNBL, Christy Collier-Hill about the growing focus on fan engagement in women's hoops.
2023/2024 WNBL award winners
Congratulations to all the WNBL award winners.
Suzy Batkovic Medal (League MVP): Jordin Canada (Melbourne Boomers)
Fan MVP: Jade Melbourne (UC Capitals)
ALL WNBL FIRST TEAM: Jordin Canada (Melbourne Boomers), Jade Melbourne (UC Capitals), Lauren Nicholson (Sydney Flames), Isobel Borlase (Adelaide Lightning), Mercedes Russell (Southside Flyers)
ALL WNBL SECOND TEAM: Sami Whitcomb (Townsville Fire), Naz Hillmon (Melbourne Boomers), Amy Atwell (Perth Lynx), Aari McDonald (Perth Lynx), Didi Richards (Sydney Flames)
Robyn Maher Defensive Player of the Year Award: Lauren Nicholson (Sydney Flames)
Sixth Woman of the Year Award: Leilani Mitchell (Southside Flyers)
Coach of the Year Award: Shannon Seebohm (Townsville Fire)
Betty Watson Breakout Player of the Year Award: Alex Sharp (UC Capitals)
Cygnett Community Award: Courtney Woods (Townsville Fire)
We also loved to see our friends the Shooting the Breeze podcast doing their first coverage of the orange carpet with a live broadcast—awesome work team!
Relive the moments with their special awards podcast ep!
Want more hoops content?
There’s been so much great stuff published this season—but here are just a few of our fave basketball pieces from the 23/34 WNBL season.
The amazing Amanda Shalala wrote about how former pro basketballer Tiana Mangakahia has found her purpose as she fights breast cancer again and strives to help others for the ABC.
Jo White launched a new podcast called “Pause Beyond the Court”. Go Jo! The podcast reflects on playing a team sport when you're a young woman creating friendships, community and fitness, along with delivering a few challenges too. Jo is a mum and qualified social worker, and has gathered those in the know—from teens, experts, Olympic champs and beyond—to make navigating those challenges much easier.
Hayley Wildes looked at the Opals’ journey to the Paris Olympics for the Pick and Roll. Hayley also wrote this excellent profile on Abigail Wehrung's long trek from personal tragedy to three-point queen of the WNBL and Bendigo Spirit for our ABC Sport partnership.
The news dropped that the GOAT, Lauren Jackson, called time on her international career just after the Opals defeated Germany 85-52 at the FIBA Women's Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Brazil.
And of course, after her recent “thank you” game in Sydney, she made sure she showed her fans her gratitude. What a legend.
Catch up on the latest stories from the Siren Sport X ABC Sport partnership
Sarah Burt wrote about Surfing Mums, the program helping new parents continue surfing with support and childcare while they're in the water.
Siren co-founder Kasey Symons also took a look at Swifties in sports fandom and how women are driving different ways to be fans and can bring more people into sport.
Thank you Pyper!
Our wonderful intern Pyper Denneman has now wrapped up her placement with us.
Pyper is a sports media student at Charles Sturt University and worked with us over the summer. Pyper wrote some great pieces for us including a lovely review of Mitch Nivalis’ documentary “Equal the Contest” and an interview with our very own AFLW Oracle and Siren Sport co-founder Gemma Bastiani.
Pyper’s enthusiasm, solid work ethic and determination made her an absolute dream to work with and we know she’ll continue to do great things.
Thanks for everything Pyper! We can’t wait to see what you achieve next!
Siren Book Club - Personal Score by Ellen van Neerven
Attention fellow sports book lovers! You won’t want to miss this.
The next Siren Book Club book is Ellen van Neerven’s Personal Score: Sport, Culture, Identity!
The Siren Book Club for Personal Score will be held online via Zoom on Tuesday 12 March, at 7pm AEST.
Register here to book your spot and we will email you the link closer to the date.
We’re hoping to do more book club sessions in 2024 so if there is a book you’d like us to include, let us know? We’d love to hear from you!
Siren is now on Patreon!
We have a Patreon! And we’ll be adding some cool things for our Patreon supporters over 2024 so if you can, sign up now!
Funds from our Patreon go towards:
commissioning and paying writers and content creators
running our Emerging Sports Writer Programs
creating opportunities for women and non-binary folk in sports media
The support of the Siren community has facilitated that work and helped support those commissions and opportunities and we can’t thank you enough.
You can become a Patron of Siren today and help us continue to challenge the status quo of sports media.
