Newspaper coverage of women's sports

Nope, Stanford-Harvard was a late game. It was at Stanford. I'll look to see if it was maybe an hour or so earlier than I believe, but it was definitely a late-night game.

Just for some perspective: Even after the big Magic-Bird duel in 1979, the next season's men's title game was also a late broadcast. So, if we assume things picked up in 1981, then the men's game has been building for 30 years. About twice as long as the 14-year span you cite, and with regular-season games televised nationally.

 

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1998/6/4/upset-city-pif-one-game-has/

So it was even later than I believed.

 

Well now you are just throwing out crap and losing sight of your argument. For your information, the men's game hasn't been "building for 30 years." In fact Bird-Magic remains the most watched game in NCAA tournament history, by viewership and obviously by ratings. But the championship game averaged more than 30 million viewers between 1980 and '94, which is the analagous time frame; that number has dropped precipitously since then to below 20 million. But the early-round viewership has skyrocketed and did so well within the 14-year time frame that the women have had.

I didn't say Harvard-Stanford was an early game. I said it was at the end of an entire day of coverage of the tournament by ESPN.

 

What's the women's sports coverage compared to Major League Lacrosse or MLS or Arena football? Comparing them to the NFL, MLB, NBA, NCAA FB or BB or even hockey is a joke. Will you run college hockey as big as you ran NCAA WB final? Is it because you're sexist against men or because no one cares? There will always be some things that get bigger play than others and the reason why doesn't have to be underhanded or wrong. If there's not a local angle, there's no need to force feed it to people.

 

Or, in fact, at the beginning of the next day, since it was at midnight Eastern.

Just eat this one and move on. I found a link with the details. Why keep resisting?

BTW, you totally missed the point about the reference to 1981 as a starting point. And the fact that those ratings also picked up as ESPN got picked up as a cable network. Funny how having a growing audience for a cable channel also leads to higher ratings for the sports on that channel.

Finally, it has to be pointed out again that men's games were already on first NBC and then CBS. Regular-season games, too. Women's regular-season games likely were not shown with any regularity until ESPN2 started picking up steam.

All of that has been well-documented in the past. Want me to find that link for you, too, or can you take on that one?

 

ESPN has always gone whole hog over the NCAA women's basketball tournament. It's in their contract.

Up until a few years ago, the women played the same days as the men did (Thurs-Sun). No one watched. Then they wisely staggered the schedule to a Sat-Tues, giving them Mondays and Tuesdays going only against the NIT broadcasts. CBS used to have Women's Final Four on Saturday and championship game on Sunday afternoon. Team (rightly) complained about having to play back-to-back. So they switched to a Fri night-Sunday night on ESPN and, later, a Sunday-Tuesday. No over the air network is going to air women's basketball in prime time... not even at the Olympics.

The US Open tennis women's final moved to prime time in 2001 at a time when women's tennis was more exciting than the men's game. It helped a lot that Venus and Serena Williams were dominating the sport. Now, with Venus and Serena in the shadows and no dominant player emerging, it will be interesting to see how long CBS is willing to air Clijsters-Zvonereva in prime time against NASCAR, college football and prime time movies on other networks.

Women's sports, outside of Olympic figure skating and gymnastics, just doesn't have a very large following.

 

CBS regularly airs a women's tripleheader the Saturday of the NFL wild-card games. No point trying to steal the men's market, they figure.

 

OK you're making no sense. If you read back, the Harvard-Stanford reference was was my off-the-cuff reference to how I knew first-round coverage dated to at least 1998; I later noted that the game was the end of ESPN's entire day of coverage of the women's bracket, in an effort to dispel your misconception that there was no real coverage of the tournament back then. I am sorry if that reference isn't clear to you.

So here we are. You believe that ~15 years isn't enough to gauge whether a sports' or event's audience will grow into the mainstream and that further investment and promotion is required. I guess since you're so fired up on this particular thread, you also believe media outlets should cover these things on a more equal basis to the men regardless of the interest level, because it will "give 'em a chance."

I think the coverage is more than adequate, perhaps even excessive, given the interest levels that are demonstrated fairly consistently through TV ratings and attendance.

I can live with being on the other side of you on this one.

Have a nice night.

 

http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2010/12/31/streak-ending-uconn-stanford-nets-highest-rated-regular-season-womens-basketball-rating-ever/76898

http://www.nytimes.com/1995/04/09/sports/college-basketball-women-s-sports-get-a-boost.html

http://sportsjournalism.org/uncategorized/college-basketball-ratings-weekend-shows-a-drop-for-cbs-as-tournament-approaches/

Tacked on that last one because it shows women's ratings aren't the only ones that took a hit in the last couple of years.

 

Actually, I'm just curious why people like you are so offended by the concept. Obviously a midnight Eastern game is not going to be seen by tons of people, but you're running for cover from that one because you got proved wrong.

Please stop with the "end of the entire day of coverage" stuff. It was a MIDNIGHT game.

Also, I think NHL ratings are still fairly low. So why is there coverage of that sport? Clearly the interest levels are low.

If the pattern of cable channels developing and bringing ratings along doesn't make sense to you, then maybe this isn't the discussion for you.

 

Mark, as long as they're doing wrap-around coverage on the first round, that's just not true.

The magic 8-ball says "no." You'd better change the definition of "tons more coverage."

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Look, it's pretty simple, a chicken vs. egg debate. Will coverage of women's sports lead to more viewer interest, larger crowds ... or does the current viewer interest and smaller crowds dictate that they never get that kind of coverage?

If you feel it's a newspaper's job to "champion" something, you have one opinion. If you think newspaper coverage should be dictated on current interest, you have the other opinion.

If you believe both schools of thought have merit, you're probably closer to being right than anyone.

 

That all sounds pretty sensible to me.