Eimear Ryan: Female athletes no longer the token in the room

Revolutionary changes in the media, especially over the last decade-plus, have contributed hugely to this shift for women’s sports.

Ireland's Leona Maguire was a key part of Team Europe's Solheim Cup success. Picture: Brian Spurlock/Sportsfile

For the past few weeks I’ve been glued to the new season of Succession, Jesse Armstrong’s superb family boardroom drama. Best described as Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp meets King Lear, it’s a show in which every character is strangely sympathetic despite being, objectively, a terrible person.

The current storyline sees patriarch Logan Roy stepping down as CEO in the midst of a #MeToo scandal and choosing an interim CEO from among his underlings. It is generally agreed that a female CEO would be best, for ‘optics’. Or, as eldest son Kendall puts it sardonically to his sister, Siobhan: “Girls count double now. Didn’t you know?”