Sponsorship Will Decide the Next Decade of Women’s Sport – Kass Naidoo

When gsport co-founder and international cricket commentator Kass Naidoo joined Robert Marawa on his MSW show recently, after the Proteas Women’s semi-final exit at the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup, she was speaking to the broadcaster whose direct support was instrumental in launching her own career, and she made the clearest case yet for what that same backing, scaled up to sponsorship, buys South African women’s sport.

Naidoo was live from the United Kingdom, where she has spent the past month behind the microphone at the World Cup in England and Wales, when she joined the man who opened doors for her long before women’s sport commanded headlines.

Proteas Women Bow Out as England Reach the T20 World Cup Final

The conversation between two of South African broadcasting’s most recognisable voices carried the weight of that shared history. “You have given so much coverage, attention. You have helped so many of us come through the door. So I always remember that,” Naidoo told Marawa, before turning to the question every South African cricket lover was asking after the 40-run semi-final defeat to England at the Oval.

Her answer was not a lament. It was an investment brief.

“We have what it takes to get into knockouts. We are the leading women’s sport team in Africa. No other African team across rugby, cricket, football has done as well as the Proteas Women have at World Cups.”

ICC Cricket Broadcaster, Kass Naidoo

That record, Naidoo argued, is no accident of talent alone. It is the return on the most significant investment yet made in South African women’s sport.

“If you look at the Proteas Women, the reason why they’re getting into these knockout situations is they have had professional contracts since 2013. So now the next level is how do we get to finals and win them?”

The evidence for the first half of that equation is emphatic. The Proteas Women have reached the 2023 T20 World Cup final, the 2024 T20 World Cup final and the 2025 50-over World Cup final, a run of three consecutive global finals unmatched in South African cricket.

“Not even the men have been able to achieve that with all the support they’ve had,” Naidoo said.

Yet it is the second half of the equation, converting finals into titles, that shaped her message to corporate South Africa. Heart, she warned, has carried the team as far as heart can go.

“So, I feel like it’s the good old-fashioned South African spirit that’s getting us there. We can’t rely on that.”

What is missing, in her assessment, is the professional league that sponsorship builds, and Naidoo asked when the women will get their own, pointing to the Women’s Premier League in India and the Women’s Big Bash League in Australia as the model.

“We do need a professional league in the country. One of those like the WPL, like the WBBL. I know it’s been talked about. I don’t know how far off it is from being launched, but that for me is the next level where international players are coming to South Africa,” she said. “Not enough of our players have that big match experience in leagues to be under pressure.”

Australia, the benchmark of the women’s game and now crowned T20 World Cup champions for a seventh time after Sunday’s victory over England at Lord’s, shows what a decade of sustained backing produces.

“They have a league back home. They have the strongest high performance setups. All the things that perhaps other teams are lacking, they’ve had it for over a decade now.”

Nor is this a cricket-only argument. Naidoo drew the same line through women’s football, where Banyana Banyana keep delivering on the continental and world stage without the foundation their results have earned.

“Professional contracts are desperately required in women’s football in order for us to see them advance.”

If the case for investment is clear, so is the mechanism, and it is one Naidoo has spent more than two decades building. Coverage creates excitement, excitement attracts sponsors, and sponsors create the platforms that produce more to cover.

“Every time a sponsor signs with women’s sport, we cover it. It’s the snowball effect. The more excited we are about women’s sport, the more excited people get about women’s sport,” she said.

Encouragingly, the wheel is already turning at Cricket South Africa. “I deeply believe that corporate investment is coming in for Cricket South Africa,” said Naidoo. “We’ve seen them sign a number of sponsors. I’m glad we have this problem and not that they’re an underperforming team.”

“Working at World Cups has really helped me broaden my perspective of what is possible for women’s sport. We are seeing more corporate investment, but I think about the smaller sporting codes, the emerging sporting codes, that is where the real work needs to be done.”

For any brand still asking whether the audience exists, Naidoo pointed to the numbers women’s sport is producing at home right now. On day one of public voting for the 2026 gsport Awards, the 21st edition of the celebration of South African women’s sport, 12,500 visitors arrived at the gsport website, an audience far beyond anything it regularly sees.

“We’ve had record-breaking voting on day one of voting at the gsport website,” she said, describing “numbers we don’t normally see for women’s sport.”

The commercial case for women’s sport is no longer a projection. It is playing out in real time, in World Cup finals, in record engagement, and in a generation of girls watching it all happen.

For Naidoo, who knows better than most what one person’s belief can build, the next decade of South African women’s sport will be decided not on the field, where the women have already proven themselves, but in the boardrooms where the next league, the next contract and the next sponsorship are waiting to be signed.

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Main Photo Caption: Kass Naidoo believes sponsorship will decide the next decade of South African women’s sport, telling Robert Marawa that professional contracts have carried the Proteas Women to three consecutive World Cup finals and that a professional league is the next step. All Photos: ICC / Getty Images

Photo 2 Caption: The Proteas Women stand alone as Africa’s most successful women’s team at World Cups, an achievement unmatched anywhere on the continent.

Photo 3 Caption: South Africa had England reeling at 23 for 3 in the semi-final at the Oval before a match-winning stand from the hosts turned the contest.

Photo 4 Caption: Naidoo points to the rising stars who carried South Africa to an under-19 global final as the generation ready to step into the senior setup.

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