The Scottish Rugby Union "launched a marketing campaign aimed at growing female participation in the sport from its current level of around 4,000 regular players," according to David Barnes of the SCOTSMAN. The "#BeTheBestYou" initiative "aims to change perceptions about women's rugby and capitalise on the feelgood factor created by the progress of the national women's team" during its recent Six Nations campaign. Scotland Women "achieved their first Six Nations victory" since '10 when the team beat Wales this year. SRU Head of Women's Rugby Sheila Begbie, responsible for around 3,000 girls and 1,000 women who currently play the game, said, "We want to push our women's national team players out there to be role models and ambassadors to attract people into women's rugby." The campaign will be "promoted throughout Scotland, initially as an online campaign using video, digital creatives and social media interaction from players across the women's game" (SCOTSMAN, 4/5). In Glasgow, Susan Egelstaff reported the "challenge that Scottish rugby has in competing with nations like England and France" is that these countries have "fully professional" programs which create "a strength-in-depth that Scotland can only dream of." England has 48 full-time players while Scotland has just one, Jade Konkel, who became "the first Scottish woman ever to sign a professional rugby contract when she put pen to paper last summer." That is on the "elite side of the sport" but a major goal of the #BeTheBestYou campaign is to "increase participation numbers and the standard of rugby being played across the board" (HERALD SCOTLAND, 4/5).
ROLE MODELS: The BBC reported a "lack of media coverage of women's sport has been highlighted in a message on a new away kit for Scotland's most successful women's football team." Scottish Women's Premier League side Glasgow City, which has won 10 Scottish titles in a row, launched a purple and white kit featuring the words, "You can't be what you can't see." Club Manager Laura Montgomery said that "more women on sports pages would create role models for the next generation." Montgomery: "How do girls grow up thinking they can be anything other than sexualized objects, which is how the media currently portrays women" (BBC, 4/5).
