‘It does feel like there’s been a real shift’: Tara Rushton on life as a female sports journalist
Ahead of International Women’s Day this Sunday, Ten sports reporter and presenter Tara Rushton talks to Mumbrella about being a female in an industry where women are underrepresented.
Tara Rushton is one of the country's most prominent sports journalists
When Tara Rushton joined Fox Sports in 2013, it was a bit of a boys’ club.
“Walking into the environment over a decade ago it was heavily male-dominant, and I believe most stories were told through a male lens and a male gaze,” she tells Mumbrella.
“Definitely, the representation of females today has completely changed. There are so many more women working in the industry, not just in sport, but across journalism as a whole.”
Rushton now works as a sports reporter at Ten, joining the 10 News Sydney team in early 2025. While it’s tempting to credit this cultural shift to her new workplace, or the television networks adopting a more equal approach to hiring in the time since, according to Rushton, the change is largely due to the explosion of women’s sport in Australia since she started as a sports journalist.
“It’s changed a lot just by default of having more leagues, more professional leagues for women, that have actually been established to report on,” she says.
“So, now you see women leading a broadcast, athletes that just happen to be women leading newspapers, being the headline story in a really positive way.”
As Rushton notes with pride, her new network is a market leader in this regard. Ten is the only commercial TV network in the country with a female news anchor in each capital city, a fact that seems remarkable in 2026.
Women anchor everyone of Ten’s 5pm bulletin across the country, and 56% of the network’s newsrooms are female.
“If I look at the Asian Cup right now that’s going on [the women’s soccer tournament currently airing on Ten], there’s incredible women from really diverse, different backgrounds that are working across commentary, across lead commentary, across the panel,” Rushton says.
“So it does feel like there’s been a real shift in representation of women, not just forward-facing in the roles that we have in media but also when it comes to athletes that just happen to be female. We’re able to tell their stories because they have leagues that are established to play. Before, they just were not existent. It was never a career path for a female athlete to actually be able to follow.”
She lists off the AFLW, Women’s Big Bash, A-League Women, State of Origin, as four quick examples of competitions that have sprung up in recent years, all with support from major sponsors and prominence on commercial TV networks.
Tara Rushton with Ten’s commentator lineup for the Women’s Asian Cup
Rushton was initially drawn to sports reporting because it satisfied her interest in human behaviour, the reason she studied journalism.
“I have always been intrigued and interested in people, and wanted to know about why people did the things that they did; why they were so driven to achieve what they wanted to achieve,” she says.
“So, at the crux of it is storytelling — and it’s really incredible when you meet athletes that are achieving what, for a mere mortal like me, look like superhuman feats.
“I’m forever in awe of incredible athletes, especially from the lens of a female perspective, because pay is not equal, there has only lately been maternity leave, and things that are put into place for female athletes to enable them to not have to step away for too long a period of time and then come back to continue their career.”
Despite the recent elevation of women’s leagues, the gender pay disparity seen in wider society remains a major hurdle in professional sports.
“If I think about footballers in particular, young women coming through have to juggle so many different careers outside of their one main career, so that they can have a full-time career and make enough money to support themselves as well.”
The other major shortfall Rushton notes is the gap in representation, which she is pleased to note is shrinking, albeit at a glacial pace.
“It’s about seeing yourself. It’s about seeing someone that you feel like you could be … there is a female lens … more balance equals women getting a seat at the table, and making sure that their voices are heard.”
Although she modestly credits female athletes for drilling a soccer ball through the glass ceiling, prominent reporters like Rushton are also breaking down barriers for younger female journalists. Naturally, Mumbrella asks what her advice would be to young girls currently studying at high school and perhaps considering a life in sports journalism.
“It’s a great career,” she begins. “You have to just work really, really hard. Be very, very curious. Ask lots of questions. Keep knocking on the door, because it can be difficult to get your foot in the door as well — so absolutely, don’t take ‘no’ for an answer.
“Be really committed, really interested, and really curious about news, about sports news, about whatever area of journalism that you’re interested in. And, dedicate yourself to it, and learn as much as you can, and ask as many questions as you can, but continue to keep knocking on the door.
“If someone says ‘no’, don’t take that as a ‘no’, just take that as a ‘not right now’.”
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