Different take on coverage of women's sports

http://american.com/archive/2010/august/take-back-the-sports-page

 

Two things came to mind after reading that article.
Women's golf and tennis get about equal treatment on television through the Golf Channel and the Tennis Channel. Women's tennis might be the only sport that has more appeal than its male counterpart. But even men's golf on the Golf Channel attracts a bigger audience than women's golf. TV media has no obligation to treat men and women's sports equally. They have an obligation to show and cover sports that interest people.
Secondly, Danica Patrick is one of the most interesting stories in auto racing. She gets attention from media and fans. She's polarizing, sympathetic and attracts a crowd. It has everything to do with her gender. But it makes me wonder why other women drivers don't have the same appeal. The one who comes to mind in particular is Ashley Force. She should be as popular, perhaps even more popular than Danica because Ashley is an actual contender to win races and championships. It might be the sport, NHRA and drag racing. It is nowhere near the media monster that NASCAR is and probably why Danica has cornered the market on women in auto racing.

 

I don't think the WNBA is the place to look if you want to see equal coverage/interest between men and women playing the same sport. The game is played differently from men's basketball and it's not during "basketball season," it's during the summer.

Probably the area women's sports comes closest to men, in terms of coverage, is during the Olympics. In fact, with the fascination (and high ratings) that accompany figure skating and gymnastics, women's events might get MORE coverage than men's during the Olympics.

 

Made it through four paragraphs. When I realized it was all the media's fault that the WUSA was underfunded and overextended and the WBL was bigfooted by the NBA, I closed the tabs. Yawwwwwwwwnnnnnnnnnn.

 

Danica had that market cornered long before NASCAR was interested in her.

There were a few attempts at trying to get female drivers to climb up the ladder (Sarah Fisher even ran a season in Winston West), but none could generate the appeal of Danica, so NASCAR just went out and recruited her directly.

 

You didn't read far enough. They buried the lede.

 

Wait a second, did someone just call Danica sympathetic?

 

They didn't call her a consistent winner, that's for sure.

 

I can answer the Ashley/Danica question with (IMO) good authority and personal experience to back it up:

Danica is marketed as a hot chick that drives a race car (with minimal results), does FHM photo shoots and Godaddy ads and is a whiny little bitch.

Ashley is marketed as a winning driver that happens to be smokin' damn hot, pitches Castrol in her firesuit and is about as nice as any person you could meet.

As for Sarah Fisher, while she may or may not be a nice person, she looks like a toadstool and can't drive much better.

 

Coverage of women's professional teams has evaporated because the teams themselves have evaporated. And if anybody wants to start a women's only publication and pay me to pump up the WNBA and women's college sports then where do I sign? Otherwise keep quiet.

 

Totally should have used a pie chart instead of a bar graph.