When asked to name a sports anchor, we can almost best that at least half of the population will immediately think of a man. Unfortunately, the ladies in the industry are often overlooked, possibly because it is an incredibly male-dominated industry.
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But some of our famous ladies stood and said no more, and have been showing that what the men can do in sports, they can do even better.
So here, a toast to our favourite top female sports presenters.
Minnie Dlamini
Minnie Dlamini has always loved sports, and she was athletic for a significant part of her life. You may not know this, but while she was in school, she played multiple sports, including tennis, netball and touch rugby, and even did long jump. By her own admission, sport is part of her DNA, so it makes sense that she would be a sports presenter.
Many raised eyebrows when she became the anchor of SABC’s SoccerZone, wondering what she could possibly know about sports. But she has proved them all wrong by doing a magnificent job with the show.
Carol Tshabalala
She is nationally recognised as ‘The First Lady of Sport’, and with over ten years of sports anchoring experience, she has certainly earned the title. Carol Tshabalala is a sports icon, and we cannot downplay the role she has played in paving the way for female sports anchors like Minnie to enter the field.
She has spoken about her position of influence in the sports and media industries, saying that she was motivated to encourage other women to go for the field if they wanted to. She said she always wondered why the field was male-dominated, so she took it upon herself to break the mould and make female sports presenters a desirable trend. And she certainly did that!
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Mpho Maboi Letsholonyane
Mpho Maboi Letsholonyane has been one of SuperSport’s greatest football faces, and she was even celebrated in the channel’s “Define your Great” campaign. Speaking about her journey in the industry, she revealed that her father was a huge influence in how she turned out. He would wake up early to watch boxing and have his friends over to watch football over the weekends, which is how she developed an interest in the game.
Like Minnie, Mpho was also an athlete at school, running the 100m and 200m races, and also played a bit of football with the boys in her neighbourhood. Since she signed on with SuperSport in 2009, her career has been on an upward trajectory, and we love to see it.
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Motshidisi Mohono
She has won awards for her sports broadcasting, and it is no surprise. Motshidisi Mohono was the first woman to present a Rugby World Cup final, and it will go down in history as one of her career highs.
She also grew up as a daddy’s girl, and it was he who influenced her love for sports. She and her siblings would watch football with their father all day on weekends while their mom was away at work. Later on when she went to school, she gained interest in cricket, and played a bit of hockey and netball.
Because of her raw passion for sports, she focused hard on her craft and was not afraid to start from the bottom, drawing all her lessons from industry bigwigs like Carol Tshabalala, whom she looked up to. And see how handsomely it paid off!
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Lindiwe Dube
Like many others before her, Lindiwe Dube gained notoriety as a sportscaster when she worked with SuperSport. She won the Premier Soccer League’s Chairman’s Award, which comes with R250,000, when she was 30 years old. Her mother spoke sweetly of her, recalling fondly how she would pick her up late in the night when she was leaving work at SuperSport.
She started out as a receptionist and a sales agent, before she quit her job to pursue journalism. And we are glad she did, because it has become difficult to picture the sports broadcasting scene in SA without her.
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Lebo Motsoeli
Lebo Motsoeli has lived a full life as a sports journalist. She started out in 2003, and she has not stopped since. She even got married to a fellow sports journalist, Sizwe Mabena, but the marriage only lasted one year before they broke up. Even so, her love for sports runs deep, and her career can prove it.
She has won multiple awards for her work: the SAB Merit award and the Ministerial award in 2016, and the Gsport Award for Women in Media in 2017, among others. She was also the first woman to host the Africa Cup of Nations matches in the world. Now that’s a trailblazer.
Every single lady on this list is an inspiration to ladies everywhere who have felt they couldn’t enter an industry because it is male-dominated. Here’s to breaking those glass ceilings and destroying gender stereotypes!
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