IN SPORT & Bindal Sharks Preserve 40+ Years of Rugby League Legacy
Townsville, Queensland | September 2026
IN SPORT is proud to partner with the Bindal Sharks to help document, preserve and amplify more than four decades of rugby league, community, culture and history through a growing digital legacy collection on the IN SPORT app.
At the heart of the partnership is a simple principle: these are community stories, told by community.
IN SPORT’s role is to provide the storytelling expertise and digital platform to help capture and amplify the stories the Bindal Sharks community chooses to share, while recognising that the history, knowledge, experiences and stories belong to the people and communities from which they come.
The partnership now enters an exciting new stage as the first collection of stories begins to be released publicly in the lead-up to the 2026 Townsville All Blacks Carnival.
Over recent months, IN SPORT has spent time in Townsville listening to and documenting conversations with people connected to the Bindal Sharks and the carnival, capturing personal memories, experiences and perspectives from across generations.
Through podcasts, interviews, photography, historical features, short-form content and documentary-style storytelling, those voices will now begin reaching a wider audience.
More Than a Carnival
For more than 40 years, the Bindal Sharks and Townsville All Blacks Carnival have brought Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander players, families and communities together through rugby league.
But behind every game are stories that extend far beyond the football field.
They are stories of people creating opportunities. Of volunteers giving their time. Of families travelling, reconnecting and supporting one another. Of leadership, resilience, culture, friendship and community.
They are also stories that deserve to be heard in the voices of the people who lived them.
The IN SPORT partnership has been developed to support that process.
Rather than IN SPORT telling the community what its history is, the project creates opportunities for community members to share their own experiences and perspectives and determine what they want audiences to understand about their journey.
Community Stories. Community Legacy.
An important principle underpinning the project is recognising that IN SPORT does not own the history it documents.
The stories, cultural knowledge, lived experiences and community history remain with the people and communities they belong to.
IN SPORT acts as a storytelling and amplification platform — working alongside communities to professionally capture and share the stories they choose to make available.
This approach places community voices at the centre of the storytelling process.
It also recognises that documenting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander sporting history requires more than simply recording an interview or producing content. It requires relationships, trust, respect and an understanding that communities should have a meaningful voice in how their stories are represented.
The objective is not to speak for community.
It is to create the platform for community to speak for itself.
Creating a Living Digital Legacy Resource
Through the IN SPORT app, the partnership will establish a dedicated digital collection where audiences can discover stories connected to the Bindal Sharks and Townsville All Blacks Carnival.
Rather than a one-off campaign surrounding the 2026 carnival, the collection is designed as a living resource that can continue to grow as the community chooses to document additional stories, people and milestones.
The collection can bring together:
Long-form community conversations and interviews
Podcasts
Historical stories and memories
Community and player profiles
Photography
Archival material shared for inclusion
Short-form storytelling
Significant moments and milestones
Future stories documenting the continuing journey of the carnival
The IN SPORT app provides the digital home through which these stories can be organised, discovered and revisited.
Importantly, the platform does not replace community ownership of those stories.
It provides another way for community knowledge and sporting history to be shared, amplified and made accessible to current and future generations.
Connecting Generations Through Sport
Many important sporting stories are not found in official statistics or record books.
They live in family photographs, personal collections, memories, conversations between generations and the knowledge held by people who were there.
The Bindal Sharks collaboration creates an opportunity to bring some of those stories together while the people who hold them can tell them in their own words.
Young players can discover the people and decisions that helped create the opportunities available to them today.
Families can revisit stories connected to their community.
Former players, organisers and volunteers can see their contributions recognised.
And future generations can better understand the history behind the jersey, the carnival and the community surrounding it.
Returning Stories to Community
Capturing a story is only one part of the process.
Making it accessible to the people it belongs to is equally important.
Through the IN SPORT app, the Bindal Sharks legacy collection provides a central digital destination where community members, families and supporters can discover and revisit the stories being shared.
This creates an opportunity for people living locally, elsewhere in Queensland or across Australia to reconnect with the history and people surrounding the carnival.
As additional stories are contributed and captured, the collection can continue to evolve alongside the community itself.
The result is not intended to be a definitive version of the community’s history.
Instead, it is a growing collection of voices, memories and experiences — shared by the people who choose to contribute them.
The Journey Continues
The first stories from the Bindal Sharks legacy collection will begin rolling out across IN SPORT in the lead-up to the 2026 Townsville All Blacks Carnival.
Audiences will hear directly from people who helped establish and shape the carnival, alongside those continuing its legacy today.
Content will be progressively released through the IN SPORT app and IN SPORT digital channels, allowing audiences to discover the people and history behind the carnival as anticipation builds for this year’s event.
For IN SPORT, the partnership reflects a larger commitment to a community-led approach to sporting storytelling.
Sport may bring people together.
But the stories surrounding it capture something much bigger — family, identity, culture, connection, opportunity and the people who helped create what exists today.
Those stories belong to community.
IN SPORT is here to help capture them, preserve them and amplify the stories communities choose to share.
