WGLSC | 5/7/2025 11:00:00 AM
York University Athletics & Recreation hosted its sixth annual Women & Girls Leadership and Sport Conference on Friday at the Schulich School of Business Executive Dining Hall.
This year's theme, "The Professionalization of Women's Sports: It's About Time," comes in a period when women's sports is on the rise, and is part of an important conversation on gender equity in sport, says York's Executive Director, Athletics & Recreation, Steven Chuang.
"The phrase, 'it's about time," is more than a slogan — it's a call to action," Chuang said. "It's about time women in sport are recognized not just for their talent, but for their leadership. It's about time the systems around sport fully reflect the values of fairness, opportunity, and inclusion. And it's about time we move from moments of progress to lasting structural change. "
Conference co-chair and York women's volleyball coach Jen Nielson echoed those sentiments, while adding that the recent rapid growth of women's pro teams and leagues will have an impact on young girls for years to come.
"It's been a timely conversation for about two years, and it was time to talk about it," said Neilson. "What happens at the top impacts the bottom, so how can we use these great role models and people holding the space and build from it all the way down to the grassroots."
To kick off the conference, Dr. Katie Label, a sport business professor at the University of Guelph whose research focuses on gender equity in sport. While acknowledging the recent rapid growth of women's professional sport, her speech focused on how we move beyond the 'honeymoon phase' of something new, and continue to build on that success for future generations.
Her reflections concentrated on how leagues pivot from marketing themselves through the lens of visualization and shift towards normalization. Being someone who fought hard just to be seen as a former high-performance varsity athlete, Label made these comments through the eyes of her eight-year-old daughter, who has never known a world without pro women's sports, while challenging leagues to pivot to new methods which will maintain popularity long-term like mass merchandising, mascots, promotions and more.
The first panel of the day featured Dr. Parissa Safai, professor of kinesiology and health science at York; Dr. Bruce Kidd, Order of Canada recipient, university Ombudsperson and Professor Emeritus, University of Toronto, Dr. Alix Krahn, Post-Doctoral Researcher at York University, and Justine Todd, York Regional Police officer and IIHF/OWHA referee. They discussed areas such as the history of women's sports, how we continue to remove berries for women in sports and creating a more inclusive environment for LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC women in sports.
The conference's inaugural "fireside chat" was led by Dr. Guylaine Demers, another Order of Canada recipient and Lab PROFEMS Director and Professor at Université de Laval. She spoke of her life in sport as an out lesbian and a woman in sporting circles, including her time as technical director at the Quebec Basketball Federation, a position she resigned from due to ongoing misogyny and discrimination, and women's basketball coach at Laval.
The day's second fireside chat featured AFC Toronto (Northern Super League) co-founder Jill Burgin. She began by speaking of former Canadian women's national soccer team star Diana Matheson's launch announcement of Project 8 with the intention of bringing professional women's soccer to Canada. She was immediately drawn to the project, and had her and her husband's bid accepted by Matheson to join the Toronto NSL founding committee. A career marketing professional, she used her expertise to help build AFC Toronto from the ground up, leading to fan buy-in from ticket sales to merchandising, the demand of which has already outdone inventory at games, indicative of the tremendous early success of Burgin and her team.
The second and final panel of the day included moderator Karissa Donkin, CBC and Radio-Canada reporter focussing on the PWHL and women's hockey; Jamie McCormick, Senior Accont Executive at The Gist, a women-led sports media company; Eva Havaris, Senior Vice-President, Tennis Development at Tennis Canada; Tesla Beard, Senior Manager, Content Strategy (Programming) at TSN, and Whitney Bell, Chief Marketing Officer for the Toronto Tempo, Canada's first WNBA team. Their discussions centred around the media and marketing landscape of women's sports, including brand partnerships, media rights deals and the importance of providing coverage of women's sports in a variety of ways.
The final tune-up ahead of Matheson's keynote address was led by Allison Sandmeyer-Graves, CEO of Canadian Women & Sport. She provided a data-driven analysis of girls, adolescents and young adult in sport nationally. 63% of girls compete in organized sport at least weekly, compared to 68% of boys, while other figures suggest that women out-participate boys in organized individual sports, while boys play team sports at a higher rate. Part of the lack of participation, CWS says, is due to the fallacy that "sport is for boys," while other factors include body image, the menstrual cycle and more. Meanwhile, data shows three in five girls would like to see access to additional facilities, programs designed to them and affordability.
To cap off the day, Matheson – a veteran of 17 years on Canada's national team, 200 international matches, four Women's World Cups and three Olympic Games – made her keynote address focusing on the founding of the Northern Super League. She began speaking of her team's disappointing performance at the 2011 WWC which saw Canada go winless in the tournament, which led to the hiring of John Herdman as the new head coach. Herdman transformed the program through tactical and technical changes, physical and mental training ad well as social and emotional culture. Matheson – who scored the bronze medal-winning goal at the 2012 London Olympics – retired following the COVID-19 pandemic at age 37 after six surgeries, but wanted to stay involved in the game. Thus, she decided to go back to school and study business administration with a focus on the viability of women's soccer in Canada. She then launched the aforementioned Project 8, and decided on a domestic-only independent league with a goal of developing players nationwide as the third-largest player pool in the world. After three years of data-centred work to make the case, the NSL was officially launched in 2024, with the first game in league history taking place on Apr. 16, 2025.
With folks like Burgin and Matheson launching Canada's first women's professional soccer league, and other leagues like the PWHL and WNBA experiencing a dramatic rise in popularity of late, this years conference will have a tangible impact on York student-athletes and those of other institutions across the country.
"It creates the opportunity for conversation that administrators and coaches have the opportunity to participate in," said conference co-chair and York Manager, Varsity Athletics Mandy McCurdy. "They can then go back to their teams and use that with their athletes."
Nielson says seeing women who have play important roles in sport and the circle of people sharing the space has played a critical part in the conference and the advancement of women's sport.
"Looking at women from all walks of life, who didn't necessarily grow up in sport, but (for whom) sport has become their life, and they've become advocates for it," she said of what resonated most with her. "The community is what it always comes back to with this event, and I'm really proud to see (the conference) still stand for that value."
As the only conference of its kind in Canada, the WGLSC has become a highly-anticipated annual event that has grown into something people not only want, but expect.
"People are looking for it every spring, McCurdy said. "People ask, 'when is the conference and what's the theme going to be?' So, we've established ourselves in the market, and that's a testament to what we're doing and the great work that's happening here."
All proceeds raised from this year's conference will go toward the creation of an athletc award for women's student-athletes. Planning for the 2026 Women & Girls Leadership and Sport Conference is already underway. For a full collection of photos from this year's event, click here.
