Take Back the Sports Page?

Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 2010-08-12 15:11

“Take Back the Sports Page?” by Christina Hoff Sommers appeared in today’s American. Your readers might find it interesting. Excerpt:

'The political wing of the women’s sports movement is in trouble. These activists are accustomed to challenging timid bureaucrats and university administrators. But in taking on TV sports coverage, they are challenging the market itself.
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According to the report, coverage of women’s professional teams has “nearly evaporated” and a “deepening silence” has enveloped women’s professional soccer, basketball, golf, field hockey, and softball. “Nothing short of stunning” says author Michael Messner, a feminist sociologist at USC. “This is simply intolerable.”
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But the heavy focus of news and highlights shows on men’s sports is not only fathomable but obvious—that is where the fans are. And that is where advertisers expect to find customers for “male” products such as beer, razors, and cars. Men’s professional sports are a fascination (obsession is more like it) to many millions of men, because they offer extreme competition, performance, and heroics. Women’s professional sports, however skilled and admirable, cannot compare in Promethean drama.

Even women prefer watching male teams. Few women follow the sports pages and ESPN, but many enjoy attending live games—featuring male athletes. According to Sports Business Daily, 31 percent of the NFL’s “avid fans” are women.

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Comments

I love sports.

I like the competition, the athletic skill and the suspense of seeing who wins. And since I'm a girl, I love admiring men's bodies. I rarely watch female sports.

Pro-sports and TV broadcasting are businesses, and businesses are all about making money. There is no way anyone can expect a free ride.

But as far as the WNBA goes, it is not so much as a free ride as people think. Usually there is a political connection between the city's NBA team and the arena funding. The city will partially pay for the arena where the NBA team will play, but they want some assurance it will be rented during the off-season, so that some revenue can be collected. The NBA makes a promise to the city that if they pay for the arena that they will provide foot traffic to local businesses and restaurants all year long by providing a WNBA team during the off-season.

So even if the NBA does not make any money selling tickets to WNBA games, they make up for it because it served as a bargaining chip for arena funding and keeps local businesses happy.

Although I think the NBA originally had much higher hopes for the WNBA.

If fans want to see female sports on TV, the only way to do that is to make it profitable. And I have no idea how to accomplish that.

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Submitted by Kris on Fri, 2010-08-13 05:41

we could have some more affirmative action quotas.

require women to get out there and compete with men on the same field.

yeah, i would watch some of that! problem solved.

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Submitted by daveinga on Sun, 2010-08-15 04:50