Sport New Zealand chief executive Raelene Castle breaks down the sector's latest initiatives. Video / Alyse Wright
In a conversation with the Herald, Sport New Zealand chief executive Raelene Castle shares how personal and professional challenges have fuelled her determination to drive New Zealand sports forward. She reveals the positive initiatives that are under way and where the focus in the sector lies to ensure continued success at the elite and grassroots levels.
Women working in male-dominated environments often find they need a “tough hide”. They can face unique challenges that can make their paths more complex.
For Sport New Zealand (SNZ) chief executive Raelene Castle, these challenges are very familiar – both personally and professionally.
She has embraced the challenges, transforming obstacles into opportunities that have shaped her impressive career.
Before her role at SNZ, Castle was the first female chief executive for an NRL club, the Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs. She’s also had stints as boss for Rugby Australia and Netball New Zealand.
Raelene Castle: 'Ultimately it's about being as competent as you can be.' Photo / Getty Images
There have been personal and professional challenges – but it is these that fuel Castle’s vision to take Sport New Zealand to new heights. It’s her experience in leadership that she draws on to deliver for the nation.
‘Not as easy for women’
Being disrespected is familiar territory for Castle, but the 54-year-old says it’s rarely gender-specific.
“The thing that’s more challenging in contemporary leadership is it’s either social-media feedback or wider perspective that happens when people take a headline of an issue and then assume that the outcome is this or I didn’t handle it well, without really understanding the depth and breadth of the issue that’s being faced.
“That wider view and perspective, you actually can’t worry about,” Castle told the Herald, “because you literally wouldn’t get out of bed in the morning if you took that responsibility for all of those people on you every day.
“Ultimately it’s about being as competent as you can be and if you can do a good job and create trust and engagement with your colleagues and the people that you work with.
“You do have to have a tough hide.”
That resilience comes not just in a work sense for Castle, who was diagnosed with alopecia areata in her late 30s.
“[Alopecia] is not as easy for women.
“My brother also has alopecia. He shaves his head – well, he doesn’t need to because he doesn’t have any hair, but he totally rocks it.
“[For men] it’s a space that you can own, [but it’s] much more confronting for women in leadership roles.”
Since being diagnosed, Castle has seen the importance of speaking openly about living with the autoimmune condition that causes sudden hair loss to help fellow women in high-pressure roles and workspaces.
“If I can support another person that’s struggling with it and they can start to see and make it more normal by having openly having the conversation, it’s a good thing.”
Always well groomed, Castle admits she probably has a smaller range of wigs than country singer Dolly Parton.
“In case anyone doesn’t know, Dolly Parton only ever wears a wig and she has a whole lot of different ones that she changes in.
Raelene Castle: 'You do have to have a tough hide.' Photo / Photosport
“I don’t tend to do that. I tend to have one and have it for a couple of years and then and then change it out. I think that would freak people out too much if I came in with dark hair tomorrow and blonde the day after,” Castle laughed.
Castle has also faced societal expectations as she’s dealt with infertility.
“It’s still quite judgmental.
“The society around the expectation that [having kids] is what women will do. It’s not really, I think necessarily an appropriate question to ask.
“I think there’s a lot of presumption that happens around [why] you should or shouldn’t have children.
“People assume that I haven’t had children because I’ve wanted to be career-focused – that’s not right.”
‘I genuinely love it’
Being a sports fan is what helps Castle overcome life’s hurdles while smashing the demands of her day-to-day job.
“I’m a crazy sports-watcher.
“I spend most of the night with the TV on, trying to keep one half-open eye on what’s on.
“IPL cricket’s on at the moment, so I keep an eye on New Zealanders. I’m an NRL fan, we always keep an eye on rugby, what are the All Blacks doing, [we’re] up late watching the Black Ferns sevens.
“It is sort of innately who I am ... I genuinely love it.”
She’s aware Aotearoa has always been united by sport, however, challenges like the cost-of-living crisis, rising awareness of mental health, growing equality demands and rapid technological change have presented hurdles.
One key lesson Castle has learned while being at the helm of various organisations is nailing the balancing act – she admits being a sports chief executive is tough.
“Trying to get the balance sheet to stack up, trying to work out how you can pay the really great staff that you’ve got to deliver better outcomes for young people.
“The world of sitting and watching two hours of dedicated time and having adverts happen at certain periods of time and sponsors being able to see their brand in front of jerseys or dresses is just more and more challenging.
“[Commercial sport] is deeply disrupted and I worry for the stress and for those leaders who are deeply passionate about their sports and their organisations.
“I’ve got lots of learnings around that and [I’m] always there to try and help and support those leaders in any way I can.”
With that, Castle reveals what in fact is happening in New Zealand sport and the areas where the nation is looking in upward momentum.
Mental health
Castle said the passing of Olympic cyclist, Olivia Podmore, and the case that followed, plus the many mental-health reviews happening across multiple national sports bodies are what’s driving the shift in the focus of wellbeing from a national perspective.
Olivia Podmore and Natasha Hansen of New Zealand. Photo / Alex Whitehead
“It was off the back of those reviews, and then the very tragic passing of Olivia that saw High Performance Sport New Zealand [HPSNZ] change strategy so that there is a wellbeing pillar,” Castle said.
“Some people might think that term is woke, but the reality is, it’s tough.
“High performance is a difficult space to be in and we want young people that come into our system to succeed while they’re there, but also succeed when they leave.
“Having the disciplines and expectations around winning and wellbeing – not winning or wellbeing because actually the most successful athlete will also be the one that is in the best possible mental health and wellbeing space they can be in.
“Absolutely, those two things have to come together if we think we’re going to have repeat performances internationally.”
The governing body launched a systems approach to athlete mental health last year, running through to 2028.
It aims to guide the planning and implementation of mental health promotion, prevention programmes and healthcare services delivered across the high-performance sporting sector.
Sport diplomacy
“We’ve been really fortunate to have advocates, Prime Ministers, ministers of sport that really believe that the value that we get out of sport and performances on the world stage is not just important to New Zealanders and New Zealand as a whole, but actually more and more are starting to become an opportunity to open doors,” Castle said, referencing the trip by Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Sport and Recreation Minister Mark Mitchell to India last month.
“Prime Minister Luxon has given us some direction that he wants to see sport diplomacy used in other ways around the world – this is a live, working example of it through India.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon plays down the wrong line during a street cricket game in India. Photo / Interest.co.nz
“The aspirations [of the trip were] a free trade agreement with India – so that’s a [Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade]-type, government-driven focus. But actually it was the sport diplomacy piece of having Ross Taylor and Ajaz Patel there so that they were co-leading, with Dame Therese Walsh, that initiative that allowed them to open doors.
“Out of that, we have now got an agreement with an equivalent of Sport New Zealand in India and we’re going to share opportunities and learnings as they have an aspiration to go from 71st on the [Olympic] medal table into the top 10.
“That’s an incredible improvement [India] want to make and they see New Zealand as a country that can help them do that.
“Sport has to be seen as not just the value that we deliver to the winning in that moment, it also has to be what we do to the wider government.
“We think we’ve got the landscape, and we just have to keep making sure we’re promoting the benefit of that,” Castle said.
Kids and their screens
It’s becoming increasingly difficult to pull a kid away from a screen. Yet, participation across a range of sports continues to increase.
Castle explains this is because sports content is being consumed in snackable sizes across social media platforms and is boosting interest in various codes, such as basketball, football and volleyball.
It also has encouraged home workouts, as tutorials and skills coaching are more accessible and available.
Rather than taking technology away from kids completely, SNZ’s focus is to use the technology where it can to help kids with their physical activities.
“Dancers might spend six hours getting your TikTok dance exactly right, that’s actually six hours of physical activity that you’ve done in that environment,” Castle said.
“It might sound niche, but actually we’ve got thousands of young women delivering TikTok dances and engagements in that way.
“So we take an approach to see how we can use the technology to increase the physical activity.
Young basketballers in action in Wairau Valley, Auckland. Photo / Alex Burton
“It might be using your phone in your bedroom to do a Pilates class because that’s the way that you want to engage.
“Any way we can get people out playing organised sport, that would be great, but also engaging in a way that your community is engaging is good as well.”
Women’s sport
Castle knows all too well the need for equality across men’s and women’s sport.
She is placing more focus on ensuring young women have the opportunity and the vision of sport being a genuine career, where you can make a good living instead of just surviving.
That’s why SNZ last month announced a movement called the Global Alliance for Female Athletes (Gafa). It will involve leading health practitioners and sports scientists from New Zealand, Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom joining forces to help female athletes overcome prevalent health issues to reach their full sporting potential.
Raelene Castle: 'How can we not just treat women as small men, but actually say, ‘what is it they need?' Photo / Photosport
Castle said Gafa will focus on the science behind female athletes because the science is new.
“How can we not just treat women as small men but actually say, ‘what is it they need?’
“Maybe, training through menstrual cycles? The change that happens to your body during those periods of time, what do I actually need as a woman? How much downtime? How much different support do I need than a male athlete?”
Generational talent
Last year, Team New Zealand recorded their most successful Olympics at the Paris Games, with a total of 10 gold medals.
Castle said it’s hard to find the secret sauce in planning to replicate that success at the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, admitting that New Zealand’s recent glory has come from generational athletes.
Dame Lisa Carrington celebrates her eighth Olympic gold medal. Photo / Photosport
“It will be really hard to find the next [Dame] Lisa Carrington because most humans don’t win three gold medals [as at Paris], right? They just don’t. And so you know how we start to look at unlocking and replacing the likes of Lisa Carrington [and] Dame Sophie Pascoe in a Paralympic sense – how do you?
“At the end of the day, it’s those athletes who have something extra and we need to keep finding them.
“It’s not easy, but ... we do have some unique individuals in our science, tech coaching and strengthening innovation-type space who can work closely with athletes to help them be able to perform the best that they possibly can.
“Then, I’ve always been a believer that it’s easier to find a little needle in a smaller haystack. We have a relatively small population, so the good, talented athletes tend to come to the top and we can identify them, support them more easily than when you’ve got 260 million people.
“We’ve got a good level of investment from the Government to allow us to invest in those outcomes, and that continued investment will be important.
“We have national sports organisations with good governance, good focus, good systems in place.”
Bonnie Jansen is a multimedia journalist in the NZME sports team. She’s a football commentator and co-host of the Football Feverpodcast, and was part of the Te Rito cadetship scheme before becoming a fulltime journalist.
