MOVE Congress 2019 presentation by Aaron Kearney, AKS Media, in the track 'Carving a new niche with Grassroots Sport Diplomacy' on 17 October.

1. AARON
KEARNEY
MY SPORTS
DIPLOMACY
JOURNEY
From elite,
to grassroots
and back
again

3. That is grassroots sports diplomacy

4. A LIFE IN PRO SPORT

5. A GRASSROOTS GLIMPSE
OF THINGS TO COME
• Offering the
“professional football
fantasy” experience
to junior teams.

6. MARKETING OR
DIPLOMACY?
• Raised profile of the
public broadcaster.
• Raised profile of junior
sport.
• Celebrated the values
of sport.
• Recognised volunteers.
• Built a sense of
community.
• Focused on girls in
second year.
• Imagined a pathway
from participation to
professionalism.
• Captured imaginations.

7. A PIVOT TO GRASSROOTS

8. PACIFIC SPORTS
PARTNERSHIPS
The Pacific Sports Partnerships (PSP) are
between the Australian Government and
national and international sports bodies
to deliver targeted sport for development
activities.

9. PACIFIC SPORTS
PARTNERSHIPS
The objectives of PSP are to:
• Increase regular participation of Pacific
Islanders in quality sport activities.
• Improve health-related behaviours which
impact on Non-Communicable Diseases
(NCD) risk factors; and
• Increase inclusion of people with disability
in Pacific communities.

10. PACIFIC SPORTS
PARTNERSHIPS

11. A DOUBLE LIFE

12. HEALTH

13. HEALTH

14. GENDER EQUITY

15. GENDER EQUITY

16. INCLUSION

17. INCLUSION

19. BLURRED LINES
• It was journalism.
• But it was about storytelling.
• It was fundamentally communication.
• International and interpersonal.
• Creating connections
• Explaining challenges and progress.
• Improving understanding.
• Building relationships.
It was starting to look a lot like diplomacy.

20. SPORTS DIPLOMACY

21. SPORTS DIPLOMACY

22. A STRATEGIC FRAMEWORK
The Vision:
To strengthen
Australian sport and
opportunities for
athletes globally and
unlock their full
potential to support
our national interests.

23. A GRASSROOTS IDEA GOES GLOBAL
I developed Commentary for Good; the world’s first academically-
researched Sports Commentary for Development program designed in
Australia and developed in the Pacific
with the potential to produce professional local language sports
broadcasts across the globe.

24. COMMENTARY FOR GOOD
The only:
• multi-cultural
• multi-lingual
• capacity-scalable sports
commentary system
• empowering anyone to
deliver compelling highly-
professional live sports
coverage
• via traditional and new
media
• infused with key
messages of social
change.

25. A NEW DIPLOMACYImagine…
• a girl in Eastern Europe,
opening her social media feed
to find a team of women
providing lively coverage of
the National Cup in her
language.
• two mums from Vanuatu
commentating live at the
World Cup in their indigenous
language, Bislama.
• or a team in Kabul calling the
cricket and promoting an
upcoming vaccination clinic.
It is real. It is already happening.

26. A group of indigenous
Australian men and women
from the Tiwi Islands
aboriginal community
learned the system.
FIRST STEPS

27. SUCCESS
Broadcast their local Australian Football League to
Bathurst and Melville Islands.
They were heard across Australia on the national
broadcaster ABC.

28. AN INTERNATIONAL CHALLENGE
Could it be used to produce Olympics-style coverage of
the 2015 Pacific Games?
• 40 men and women with vastly different abilities were
recruited.
• Two weeks of professional commentary broadcast right
across the Pacific.
• The coverage received the MOST positive feedback in
the HISTORY of the Niugini National Broadcaster

29. ANOTHER GLOBAL TEST
Five women chosen
from the Australian
Department of Foreign
Affairs Women in News
and Sport Initiative.
They learned the
Commentary for Good
System.
And used it covering the
2018 Commonwealth
Games on the Gold
Coast

30. GRASSROOTS CHANGE
M and E:
• Greater respect
from colleagues
• Self belief and
capacity
growth from
covering a
global event
• Collegiality
• Greater focus
on women’s
sport
• Cultural
empowerment

31. GLOBAL
DIPLOMACY
In 2018, Pacific women made history by covering the OFC
Nations Cup semi-finals in Bislama and iTaukei Fijian as well as
English.
And we cut a deal to broadcast the 2019 FIFA Women’s
World Cup back to the Pacific.

32. GRASSROOTS
BECOMES ELITE

33. SMALL GOES
LARGE

35. RESPECT AND RECOGNITION

36. LEAVING A LASTING LEGACY
Commentary for Good is
designed specifically to
tackle the SDGs including:
• Education - SDG4
• Gender Equality - SDG5
• Decent work - SDG8
• Industry and Innovation -
SDG9
• Reduced Inequalities -
SDG10
• Responsible Production -
SDG12
• Peace and Justice -
SDG16

37. COMMENTARY FOR GOOD
But also...
• A way to speak so
communities listen.
• Empowering
communities by
upskilling for the
digital age.
• A way to give focus
to social change
campaigns.
• A new way to
connect the world
through sport.

38. MAKING THE STRATEGY WORK
1.Empower Australian Sport
to Represent Australia
Globally
2.Build Linkages
with our Neighbours
3.Maximise Trade, Tourism
and Investment
Opportunities
4.Strengthen Communities
in the Indo-Pacific and
Beyond

39. ELITE BECOMES GRASSROOTS

40. JNR MATILDAS PACIFIC STEP UP TOUR

43. SPORTS DIPLOMACY COMES TO LIFE

44. WHY DID I EMBRACE SD?
Sport embodies many of my
most treasured values –
• Individual freedoms,
democracy and the rule of
law,
• gender and racial equity and
mutual respect,
• social inclusion,
• life-affirming choices through
quality education/information
• The values of the SDGs

45. WHAT HAVE I LEARNED?
• Sports diplomacy is not a
formula and not a
game…
• In developing
environments the
separation between
grassroots and elite is
often blurry.
• Sports Diplomacy is
undervalued by many,
misunderstood by most
and widely treated with
suspicion.

46. INFLUENCE V RESPECT
• Many diplomatic engagements are
fundamentally inequitable.
• There are power imbalances.
• Culture and local agency can suffer
• No Common language

47. A FAIRER ENGAGEMENT
• Sport provides a unique, post-colonial, ostensibly
egalitarian, mutually-respectful mechanism for
sharing values.
• Sport is a common language but spoken with
local cultural dialect.

48. SPORTS DIPLOMACY IS PERSONAL
The good news is – you
can personally
influence international
relations
The bad news is – you
can personally
influence international
relations

49. Approach Sports Diplomacy
as an diplomatic mission…
Not a sports event.

50. • Modern Sports Diplomacy is a powerful new tool for
building important and resilient relationships, tackle
the SDGs and improve lives.
• And like a grassroots sports match, we are often
players and referees.

51. • It is dangerous to underestimate its power to do
good…and do damage.
• I issue this challenge to every individual and every
organisation looking to use sport for a diplomatic
dividend:

52. AT EVERY STAGE, ASK
• What counts as
win?
• What is the
price of failure?
• Why, precisely,
do we even
want to play?

53. HAVE A GAME PLAN
• Define your desired outcomes
• Consult all stakeholders and
attain consensus
• Articulate your vision
• Design to that vision
• Get help if needed
• Hardwire the contribution of all
stakeholders
• Tell stories – for all potential
audiences
• Make the grassroots big
• Make the elite grassroots
• Use sport to explore new
relationships, partnership and
ways of achieving outcomes

55. LET’S TALK ANY TIME