Raelene Castle will appear alongside Minister for Sport and Recreation Grant Robertson at next month's Captain's Lunch at Eden Park.
Could it be a sign of things to come?
Sport New Zealand's long-time chief executive Peter Miskimmin is leaving the role at the end of a yearand all indications are that the next CEO will be a woman.
The Minister's key focus for sport in this term has been the advancement of women and girls in sport. The boards of Sport New Zealand and High Performance Sport New Zealand have moved to gender equity, as has senior leadership at the government sport's agency.
It would be a powerful statement of Robertson's goal to level the gender playing field for the most powerful position in New Zealand sport (below that of minister) to be perhaps the country's most celebrated female sports administrator.
Castle's journey from boss at Netball New Zealand to the Canterbury Bulldogs in the league bastion of West Sydney to Rugby Australia is impressive, although she left the last two roles under significant banks of nimbostratus.
The Bulldogs are now firmly established as a bottom feeder after salary-cap constraints left them unable to bolster their playing stocks. Rugby Australia is, frankly, a hot mess, not helped by the costly Israel Folau homophobia saga, the poor 2019 World Cup campaign and the failure to secure a broadcasting deal.
In both cases Castle can mount a strong argument that the respective organisations were trending in the wrong direction when she was brought on board to try to turn them around.
Castle's defenders point to the glass ceilings she's shattered along her path and the inherent obstacles she faced moving into male-dominated sectors. Her critics, mainly male, mainly Australian, believe she was out of her depth.
A bureaucracy might not be the best fit for Castle's commercial instincts but the organisation is large enough for her to be able to surround herself with government careerists if that is deemed a weakness.
Sport New Zealand might provide a less frenzied environment than Australia but as we've seen over the past few months, it is not immune to trenchant criticism.
That is something Castle should have no problem dealing with.
It must be said that nominating Miskimmin's successor at this point is a classic kite-flying exercise, but perhaps the Minister will offer a clue next month.
A view from California
Sky TV CEO Martin Stewart with Rob Waddell during the Sky Sport Next announcement. Photo / Photosport
Over the weekend I wrote a story about Sport New Zealand's attempt to dance on a pinhead by both endorsing Rob Waddell's New Zealand Sports Collective that includes the widespread broadcast and streaming of school sport, yet trying to mitigate the consequences of it through it Balance is Better programme.
It sparked this interesting (abridged) correspondence from someone who taught in the Californian high school system for close to three decades.
"Until the decision to retire a few years ago, I spent 27 years teaching math in a California high school. The population of the US is roughly [70x] that of New Zealand and American enthusiasm for commercial opportunities is rabid in comparison to the case here, yet commercialisation of high school sports is a line that isn't crossed in the US. This [is] for all the reasons on your list. Schools and families worry too much about those same downside risks to kids. We only saw a little coverage of high school sports on local TV - kind of spotty and haphazard - [and] it was really for the benefit of parents who couldn't attend the game."
The consistent class of Scott Dixon
I'm trying to think of a New Zealander who has been a dominant force in a globally recognised class of sport for as long as Scott Dixon has and the only comparable names I can come up with are Russell Coutts and Ivan Mauger, and perhaps Barbara Kendall and the golden generation of three-day eventers like Mark Todd.
