Media Coverage of Women's Sports

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Feb 17, 2014
7,152
113
Orlando, FL
Let's face it, if college sports really were a business as some claim there would not be any womens sports and only very few mens sports. Most teams even in the highly successful sports schools are not self sustaining and are a net loss to the institution. In HS sports it is even worse as only rarely is a HS team in any sport self sustaining.
 
Sep 18, 2011
1,411
0
I don't have an hour to watch but I guess i don't understand why there should be a direct correlation between participation and media coverage. Kind of like saying that since more kids participate in soccer than football then there should be more media coverage of soccer than football. Maybe I'm missing something, but to me it's a simple metter of market forces, supply and demand, etc.
 
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Nov 18, 2013
2,255
113
College sports are a huge business. Most teams are in the red, but athletics are huge money makers with the donations and merchandise revenue they bring in
 
Apr 30, 2010
259
28
Artic Circle
One of the points they try to make is that media drives the popularity of certain sports. They say that if there is more coverage more people will come and watch (More buzz created). They back this up with a women's professional hockey coach from Boston talking about how the other four teams in the league are from Canada and they get tons of media coverage while her team in the states gets little or none. The Canadian teams fill the stands and her team plays in front of an empty arena.

I skipped Dancing with the Stars to watch it :cool:
 
Feb 17, 2014
7,152
113
Orlando, FL
One of the points they try to make is that media drives the popularity of certain sports. They say that if there is more coverage more people will come and watch (More buzz created). They back this up with a women's professional hockey coach from Boston talking about how the other four teams in the league are from Canada and they get tons of media coverage while her team in the states gets little or none. The Canadian teams fill the stands and her team plays in front of an empty arena.

I skipped Dancing with the Stars to watch it :cool:

The coach from Boston is a moron to make such an apples and oranges comparison.
 
Jun 27, 2011
5,089
0
North Carolina
One of the points they try to make is that media drives the popularity of certain sports. They say that if there is more coverage more people will come and watch (More buzz created). They back this up with a women's professional hockey coach from Boston talking about how the other four teams in the league are from Canada and they get tons of media coverage while her team in the states gets little or none. The Canadian teams fill the stands and her team plays in front of an empty arena.

The other teams are in Ontario, Quebec and Alberta. I think two are in Montreal and Toronto, but the other two Canadian teams (it's a 5-team league) are in small cities. In addition to the fact that they are in Canada, where hockey is the national sport, those are smaller places that don't compete for media attention with the Red Sox, Patriots, Celtics, Bruins and Boston College. Or even things like the Boston Marathon, or other major events that might take place in New England.

That's not to say that I don't believe that media can drive interest in things. But it seems to me that the media these days, with 24-hour sports channels, is providing opportunities for all sorts of sports. Then it's up to the sport to take advantage of it. If it's really compelling, it will grow. Isn't ultimate fighting one example of that? I don't follow that sport, but didn't it start at a more grass-roots level and then blow up? It wasn't like ESPN just decided to champion that sport and start putting it on the air. Seems it got so popular that they could no longer ignore it. I would think that women's sports, and a lot of men's sports as well, like track and field, are exposed enough so that if there was this great untapped potential, we would've seen more a more rapid growth in popularity than we've seen. Xtreme sports is another example. ESPN did sort of champion that, but I don't think it provided more of any opportunity there than it has for women's sports such as basketball or even softball, as in the college world series. It's growing. Maybe it just takes time.

And even if true, that media can drive a sport's popularity, what sports do the media pick to invest in? Women's sports is just one ''genre,'' if you want to call it that. Maybe the untapped potential lies in youth sports. Or high school sports. Or the lower-profile men's sports. How do you decide outside of what is already popular? It ain't easy.
 
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