Gender in Televised Sports News and Highlights Shows, 1989- 2009 Michael Messner, Cheryl Cooky

5th wave of a longitudinal study 1989 1993 1999 2004 2009 Quantity and Quality of Airtime News and Highlights Shows

To Determine: Differences between Men’s and Women’s Sports Longitudinal: Track Changes Longitudinal can be applied to a variety of research projects Imagine our survey project

Description of the Study Analyzed three two-week segments (a total of 6 weeks) of televised coverage ESPN’s Sports Center What is ESPN, by the way Analyzed ticker coverage

Three Two Wek Segments of Televised Coverage Three local network Los Angeles stations Coverage: How many minutes are female sports displayed Coverage: How many minutes are male sports dsplayed How often are women displayed What ways are they displayed

ESPN Sports Center Thrre weeks of one hour 11pm SportsCenter This is the big time sports coverage in the USA

Ticker This rolling thing at the bottom of the screen that says small news bits Used similar data tracking measures as above

Findings Not Encouraging

Sports News: Coverage Declines 1989: Very low coverage 1999: Increase in coverage 2004-2009: Decrease in coverage 1.6% of total airtime

Three Afiliates and Their Styles Used to be a difference in the amount of coverage One network used to show 8.9% Now all networks share around 1.1- 2%

ESPN SportsCenter SportsCenter: 1999: 2.2% 2004: 2.1% 2009: 1.4% Page 440 in your textbook

The Ticker Affiliates: 4.6%, nearly triple their women’s coverage SporcsCenter: 2.7 Also nearly double Still a decline from before

Men Always Lead Lead stories tend to be longest Highest production value Most amount of money spent 100% of all lead stories feature men’s sports

Coverage Pg 441 Men’s Basketball, Football, Baseball Men’s Golf: 5.6% 71.7% of all coverage Men’s Golf: 5.6% Nineteen other men’s sports: 18% Female basketball: 1.5% Four other female sports Golf, Tennis, Soccer, Softball <1%

When in Season, Big Three are Given Coverage Pg 441 Pg 442

Comparison of Men and Women’s Basketball Because there are no big baseball leagues for women No big football leagues for women Only basketball

Comparison of Men and Women’s Basketball NBA is where coverage happens Pg 442, table 39.2 Women’s sports received scant coverage, even when in season Significant ticker coverage when in season Marginalized

March Madness A big month for basketball News shows ignored entirely women’s college basketball ESPN gave them “token” coverage Again, coverage went to the ticker

March Madness So do they have no time to cover women’s sports? Apparently not Stupid coverage Shaquille O’Neil vs a 93 year old woman A giant burger with 5000 calories When women are covered, it’s in sexy ways

Shifting Portrayals of Women It used to be that women were more ridiculed Women’s Bungee Jumping as a sport Weightlifting Granny That has been eliminated There are rare moments of respectful game coverage

Shifting Portrayals Sexualized Gag Stories Unfolding bra story 24 seconds of coverage in a 2 week period with no other mention of women’s sports

Shifting Portrayals Fights, Scandals, Assaults “Women’s sports …deemed newsworthy when the angle involved physical violence, rule breaking, or economic problems.” Women as Girlfriends or Wives Portrayed as athletes, yes, but emphasizes their relationship to men, usually male athletes

Shifting Portrayals Negative depictions of men Sometimes men are sexualized also Difference is “embeddedness”

Analysis and Interpretation of Findings People used to see women’s sports as beginning to explode People thought, now that more people are playing sports, and female sports are more popular, there will be more coverage That has been proven incorrect Again, 40% of female athletes nowadays, 1-2% of coverage

Why the Silence? There IS coverage It occurs on websites and elsewhere But TV remain extreley important source of information

SO LONG AS TV COVERAGE DOES NOT COVER WOMEN’S SPORTS… IT REINFORCES THE IDEA THAT SPORTS ARE NOT FOR WOMEN SOCIAL PROBLEM?

Why? Must understand production of TV coverage Producers + commentators + everyone else They say, “we need to give what the market demands”

Tigher Budgets, Narrowed Focus? New media: Fewer money for traditional mass media News sources are competing against new forms of information Twitter, Facebook, etc Newspapers “play it safe” and decide their staff should cover big time show teams However, ESPN is the most highly rated cable channel They do not have a problem with money Their ignorance must be due to other factors

Pitching Sports and Highlights to Men Assumption: Men are who are watching, and need their fix Men think women are wive, mothers, or sexual objects However, a large number of audiences are women

Packaging Women Athletes for Men 2009: Most obviously sexist portrayals have disappeared Good, BUT this coincidences with a decrease in news coverage They no longer really portray them at all

Women’s Sports History Happened in March Really respectful However, placed inbetween regular SportsCenter and ESPN Commercial Breaks “It’s something else, separate” Narrated by a man

Effects If portrayed for men Then what about lesbian or other unattractive female athletes

Commentators Very very few women commentators Sometimes sideline reporter

Audience Building This isn’t simply response to demand “Dynamic Reciprcal Relationship” They give out certain coverage, fans demand more of same coverage Men “need a fix” And will oppose or marginalize female sports coverage Ensure that there will be more coverage for men

How can Change Occur? This trend: 20 years No sign that it will change Need outside pressure

Change in Mass Media More female sports commentators Women won’t disrespect female athletes Women commentators will also (probably) want more female sports coverage

Sports Organizatins University departments could improve presentation of women’s sports And resources to them Sports fans could complain to producers Give more demand

Conclusion “Overall we find the results of this study to be discouraging. Clearly, change has happened, but not in the direction of increased coverage of women’s sports. In recent years, sports news and highlights shows have evidenced a retrenchment, expressed through a narrowed focus on a few commercially central men’s sports.”