In 2009, it was found that men's sports take 96% of sports news coverage. According to the data, even the ESPN Ticker - the headlines that scroll past on the bottom of the screen - dedicated 96.4% of its information to men's sports.
Sexism has always been prevalent in the news world, especially in sports media. This summer's 2016 Olympics, for example, featured a number of insulting and demeaning comments that disregarded women's accomplishments. However, as a whole, the sports network has done a very good job at decreasing the amount of sexist comments made on their networks. Unfortunately, this decrease in sexist comments has also been accompanied by a decrease in women's sports coverage overall. In 1989, women's sports received 5% of coverage. This number decreased to 1.6% by 2009. In fact, it seems as though sports network broadcasters have attempted to cure their sexist behavior by simply not discussing women at all.
Overall, the coverage of women's sports seems to take one of three positions: using sexist comments, comments that diminish women to their roles as mothers, daughters or spouses, or no comments at all. Nowadays, interview questions for women stray widely from the typical questions used for men, and often regard questions about how they balance being an elite athlete with being a mother, for example. Although this is considered to be an improvement from sexist commentary, it continues to restrain women within their conventional gender roles.
It is surprising and shocking that, almost 40 years after Title IX and such extensive growth in women's sporting leagues, we have not been able to overcome this inequality in media coverage. As it stands, sports media coverage is only perpetuating the ancient ideologies of male superiority that we have at least begun to fight back in other realms of society.
"So why are we able to move forward in some realms while being stuck in outdated modes and ways of being in others?"
Sources:
Belzer, J. (2016, February 25). Sports Broadcasting 101: Breaking Into The Business Of Sports Media. Retrieved May 04, 2017, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonbelzer/2016/02/24/sports-broadcasting-101-breaking-into-the-business-of-sports-media/#1fd5b2e514b1
Despite Soaring Popularity, Women’s Sports Got More Coverage a Generation Ago. (2015, June 24). Retrieved May 03, 2017, from http://fair.org/home/despite-soaring-popularity-womens-sports-got-more-coverage-a-generation-ago/