Sport isn’t as inclusive as it thinks it is – but brands can make it right
From events giving less than one per cent of places to disabled participants to getting braille wrong on the medals, sport still has a long way to go on inclusion. But that’s where brands can help, says Steve Howell.
Everyone knows that sport is an incredible force for good. Bringing a nation together, giving people hope, inspiring generations. But for all its power and ability to speak to all peoples, it’s simply not accessible for all.
The London Marathon is considered incredibly inclusive, and indeed, it really is pushing the inclusion agenda by creating things like reflection spaces, a faith space, a quiet space, a family support area, a breastfeeding area, free sanitary products and equal prize money, including for top-placed athletes with disabilities.
But out of more than 50,000 runners on the day, there are only 200 places for people with disabilities – a lowly 0.4 per cent of entrants. And although that is still more than most races, it’s nowhere near the estimated 24 per cent of the national population who live with a disability.
It’s not just this event, or even just running events in general. It’s a pernicious problem across nearly all of sport.
While working on a three-part documentary now streaming on Prime Video about this subject – examining how accessible sport really is and what is being done to make it more inclusive – it became evident very quickly that people from marginalised communities are not properly catered for in many areas of sport. They feel unheard, unsupported and simply unwelcome.
A large part of the issue is visibility. People often need to see themselves in others before taking part in something. Seeing really is believing and, without the presence of diversity, sports can easily be seen as very one-dimensional.
While this can feel like a catch-22 situation, it really isn’t, because there are a lot of willing and able trailblazers out there. They just need the invitation to participate.
And that segues into another major hurdle: the invitational issue. Many people from marginalised communities don’t feel like they’re going to be welcome.
We found that many of the communities might already have their own thing going on, set up by individuals who quite rightly felt excluded from mainstream events and so decided to start their own, whether it’s a football league, a running club or cycling community.
People generally don’t want to be segregated, they just want to be free to be themselves and feel like people want them there.
As part of the documentary, we created a fully inclusive running event open for anyone from any community and catered for any disability or accessibility need. We had people in wheelchairs and old ladies in hijabs, and managed to attract over 700 runners with just a few weeks’ notice.
The biggest challenge to make that event happen was infrastructure. We needed to ensure the course was wheelchair friendly – and not just the run itself, but the surrounding area and routes to and from the nearest parking sites.
There needed to be quiet spaces, accessible toilets, trained support staff, a British Sign Language translator, prominent signage and, probably most uniquely, we needed to provide free support runners for anyone who needed one. So not just for the visually impaired, but for absolutely anyone that felt like they needed someone to support them throughout the day and around the course.
We also became the first race to have the braille on medals certified by the Royal National Institute of Blind People. Other major running events do have braille on medals too but some of them – unbelievably – are writing braille incorrectly.
With a need for more infrastructure obviously comes a financial implication. More resources and greater expertise costs more money, but in that lies the opportunity for brands to meaningfully contribute and make a real difference in peoples’ lives.
Brands can bridge the financial gap to ensure sporting spaces are accessible for all, they can help market the events to make everyone feel welcome, and they can help organisers to enable greater diversity in their events.
While the documentary managed to achieve a lot, this is still really just the start. There needs to be a continued banging of the inclusion drum until “inclusion” isn’t a term we use but rather is something that just happens.
And seeing everyone’s face as they crossed the finish line made me truly realise why that’s important.
Steve Howell is executive creative director at Dark Horses. Dare To Defy launches on Amazon Prime Video on Tuesday 3 December.