A Mediated Man Cave of Televised Sports Coverage”: Sexism in Sports and Sports Media

Author: Lily V. Amidon

Affiliation: University of California, Irvine

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Abstract:​​​​

The 1999 FIFA Women’s World Cup championship between the United States and China still holds the international record for spectators at 90,185, and the total number of attendees, 1.194 million, remained the record until 2015. Despite this, the limited coverage of women’s sports reflects institutionalized sexism within sports media and gender-bland sexism in their broadcasts. The social value of gender separation in sports affects the perception of women’s sports and female athletes through the presence of gendered language, sexist attitudes, discrepancies in broadcast time, poor treatment of female reporters, and differences in Olympics coverage, as well as the consequences of normalized sexism in the sports industry. Despite numerous professional women’s sports leagues and the celebrity of specific female athletes, the coverage of women’s sports, including news and highlight shows, totaled 5.4%, a statistically insignificant increase from 5% in 1989 and 5.1% in 1993 (“Overlooking Her Shot,” 2021). When removing the 2019 Women’s World Cup from the study, overall coverage time in 2019 drops to 3.9%, showing an inflation of 1.1% on local TV and 1.9% on SportsCenter (“Overlooking Her Shot,” 2021; Miller, 2021). The use of different language towards female athletes, including Olympians, continues to highlight the “otherness” of female athletes, and the glass ceiling in the sports broadcasting world continues to limit the advancement of female reporters outside their traditional roles. The rise in athlete activism, however, sees female athletes calling out major sports organizations and demanding recognition and gender equity in coverage of their sport.

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Keywords: gender, sports, sports media, gendered communication​

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ISSN 3069-8200