Coverage of Female Sports: $ Marks the Spot

In response to Dr. John Vincent’s assessment of the treatment of female athletes, I feel he misses the overall problem facing women’s sports. The issue is that covering women’s sports is simply not seen as a profitable endeavor for media outlets. Until newspapers, television stations, and radio outlets can harvest a profit from covering women’s sports in a straight-forward manner, there will a sharp disparity and minimalized treatment.

At KRUI, the student radio station, I host a show called “From the Cheap Seats”. On this show we talk about all the under-the-radar sports. A majority of the time, we are talking about female sports, such as volleyball, field hockey, and women’s soccer. However, at a commercial radio station, this show would be a hard sell to management. It’s not about football, and therefore may not garner the listenership that would justify putting it on air.

The same can be said for most student media outlets. We can cover these sports without having to worry about readership, listenership, or viewer. For commercial outlets, this is not the case.

This brings me in a round-about way to the more detailed point from Dr. Vincent that the media treatment of female athletes is not the same as the media treatment of male athletes. I think this is not a separate issue, but a symptom of my first point. It is simply not profitable for media outlets to cover female sports in a direct fashion. Until viewers, readers, and listeners demand more direct coverage, media outlets are forced to use sexuality and societal roles (mother, wife, daughter, etc.) as a narrative tool to generate interest in their stories.

Whether we like it or not, the goal of every commercial media outlet is to make money. If being a beacon for social change is anywhere on the priority list, it is probably very low. Entertain and inform are often at odds, but need not be a dichotomy.

While noble, Dr. Vincent’s suggestions for how newspapers can change to provide “equitable coverage devoid of outdated, stereotypical and sexist portrayal of female athletes” will fall on the deaf ears of editors and managers, until equitable coverage is determined to have fiduciary value.