How Two South African Advocates Are Reshaping Women's Sports Recognition

Prabashnee Naidoo was virtually unknown on social media a year ago. By the close of the 2026 gsport awards cycle, she had earned the platform's Supporter of the Year award and a brand ambassador role, a trajectory that captures exactly what gsport, South Africa's women's sport platform, says it is trying to build. The selection of Naidoo and Ester Baaitjies as the platform's two newest ambassadors answers a structural question that gsport has been working through for several years: once the annual awards ceremony ends, what happens to the momentum? The gsport digital and newsroom teams reviewed public nominations submitted across social media during the awards cycle and selected both candidates based on their advocacy work, digital presence, and documented support of fellow finalists. Baaitjies, a 2026 Woman in Radio finalist, operates out of Bloemfontein and has used her platform on CUT FM to interview and celebrate women in sport across the Free State and nationally. She self-nominated for the Woman in Radio category and advanced through both judging and public voting phases to reach finalist status. Her selection signals that gsport is investing in individuals whose platforms are built through institutional media work, and that geographic distance from major media centers does not prevent regional or national reach. The ambassador program carries institutional memory worth examining. When gsport introduced the role in 2012, the platform recruited six established media and entertainment personalities: Roxy Burger, Mpho Maboi, Anele Mdoda, Shashi Naidoo, Hulisani Ravele, and Liezel van der Westhuizen. That cohort relied on external cultural capital to amplify the platform's message. By 2023, the approach had changed. Rather than recruiting outside celebrities, gsport began placing former winners and finalists into paid influencer positions. These alumni hosted Instagram Live discussions and shared firsthand accounts of being recognized on the national stage. The shift was a deliberate choice to build visibility from within the community the awards had already created. The 2026 appointments introduce a different operational mandate entirely. gsport Founder Kass Naidoo articulated the distinction directly: "The role of the two ambassadors this year is slightly different in that the awards are already over. The challenge now is how to use this solid base to continue growing women's sport and getting women in sport to believe in themselves." That framing identifies a gap the platform has named openly. The awards cycle generates concentrated attention, but that attention disperses once the ceremony concludes. Naidoo's own rise offers a case study in how the platform claims to operate. According to gsport's documentation of her selection, she moved from an unknown social media presence to an award-winning advocate within a single year. The platform positions this as evidence of its core mission: providing visibility to people who champion women's sport from outside the professional athlete ecosystem. The stated expectations for both ambassadors carry implicit assumptions about what sustained advocacy requires. Kass Naidoo told both that "the gsport team looks forward to working with them both to ensure that they get to powerfully use their voices to change the game, and that gsport continues to have a positive influence on their personal careers." That formulation suggests a mutual benefit model. The ambassadors gain career elevation through association with gsport; the platform gains extended reach through their voices. Meanwhile, the broader strategic question remains unresolved. Prabashnee Naidoo issued a call for women across sporting codes, administrations, and media houses to "reach out to the gsport team and ask for help," framing the platform as a year-round resource rather than an annual recognition event. The mechanism by which that support translates into measurable outcomes for women athletes and sports professionals has not been detailed publicly. The two ambassadors will operate in what amounts to a post-awards window, tasked with maintaining momentum that typically dissipates once the ceremony ends and media attention moves elsewhere. Whether community-embedded advocates can sustain that visibility more effectively than the celebrity model gsport used more than a decade ago is the question their work over the coming months will begin to answer.