Women Are Still Struggling To Break Into The “Boys Club” Of Sports Broadcasting But Doing So Could Change The Nature Of Pro Female Athlete Coverage
Over the past decade, there has been increasing outrage over how little media coverage female athletes receive as opposed to male athletes.
One study conducted by Purdue University even revealed that female pro athletes only received 5.4% of all televised airtime in 2019– a figure that has virtually remained unchanged since 1989.
And while there is no disputing that female athletes deserve more media coverage, there is another side of the same coin to consider– the alarmingly low number of women working in sports broadcasting.
According to Zippia, 38.4% of all professional athletes in the United States are women. At the same time, though, only 23% of all sportscasters in the country were women in 2019– a figure that is less than 1% higher than in 2010.
Network sports television actually took to air during the mid-1940s, but it was not until 1974 that former Miss America winner Phyllis George became one of the first women to obtain a significant role in sportscasting.
She joined The NFL Today cast alongside Jimmy Snyder, Irv Cross, and Brent Musberger before later moving into a permanent anchor role for CBS Morning News.
Still, the fact that a woman was reporting on sports was a novelty back then– and one that many people dubbed an attempt at televising “eye candy” more than anything.
People just did not think that women could properly report on sports– especially male sports, which take up the vast majority of air time. So, female sportscasters were a dime a dozen and coveted mostly for their appearance rather than their journalistic contributions.
Of course, though, female sportscasters had and still have much more to offer, and it was not until the 1980s when the “boys’ club” of sports newsrooms began to witness women breaking in.
Pixel-Shot – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purposes only, not the actual person
And since then, women’s contributions to sports media have only grown over the years.
For instance, Doris Burke– one of the most well-known female sportscasters– launched her career in 1990. Since then, she has been an analyst for the NBA on ESPN, College Basketball on ESPN, and the NBA on ABC, as well as College Basketball on ABC.
Similarly, Jemele Hill, a revered sportscaster for ESPN and SportsCenter, began her career in 1999; meanwhile, Mina Kimes– who is now an analyst on NFL Live and a senior writer at ESPN– broke into the sports media industry in 2007.
While aspiring women sports journalists have these powerhouses to look toward, though, there is no denying that these accomplished female sportscasters are like unicorns in their field.
Recently, other prominent female sportscasters even sat down with The Cut and detailed how to this day, making a mistake on air is terrifying– simply because they are women.
“I remember this year, I pronounced a player’s name wrong. It was really cold, and my lips were freezing, and it came out weird. Those are the times when social media feels the worst because, even if I own the mistake, fans are ruthless,” explained Jenny Taft, a sideline reporter for Fox Sports.
“And as a woman, I do find that those mistakes are bigger, like, ‘She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”
Even more disheartening is the fact that most journalism graduates in the United States are women– over sixty-seven percent, to be exact.
Yet unfortunately, the well-known “boys’ club” culture of sports broadcasting pushes many young journalists to ditch their dreams of being on the sidelines and pursue other career routes.
So, of course, hiring more women and tearing down any internal discriminatory hiring processes in sports journalism is the first step. Showing young female journalists what is possible on a broad scale– not just a tokenized one– is crucial.
In the meantime, though, there is a dire need for journalism schools to start inspiring female students to go for their goals despite the industry status quo.
Increasing female sportscasters’ saturation in the field will eventually force women to become more prominent in this journalism sector– one woman at a time.
And perhaps, as this reporting field begins to even, the coverage of women athletes will, too. After all, there has never been a greater public demand for women’s sports coverage. Yet, it is ultimately the journalists– who are predominantly male right now– that decide what stories to cover and what stories to pass up.
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