Women's Sport in the Media

A post by Beth

Last night while watching the ABC news I was pleasantly surprised to see three stories about women’s sport! Samantha Stosur won her semi final match against Russia's Svetlana Kuznetsova during the Kremlin Cup putting her through to the final, the Australian Diamonds Netball team finished their international season with a win over Malawi on the Goldcoast and the Canberra Capitals basketball team, though they didn't win their match were also mentioned. When most nights it is all about men's sport and what is going on in their world to have three women's teams/events mentioned on one night is much, much more than the normal amount of representation women receive.

Women's sport is extremely underrepresented in the media compared to men's sport. Everyday you hear about or watch the success and failures of the various men's sporting teams or events active at the moment, cricket, soccer, motor bike racing, golf, rugby, AFL but do you hear about the women's teams? To quote an article I read recently "Socceroos in 6-0 loss!, Socceroos in 6-0 loss!. (Yes twice.) But did you know Sam Stosur won the Japan Open?" (Kathryn Wicks, 2013). We hear about the failures of our men's teams to great effect, plastered all over the news, but what about the successes of our women sporting champions? Though it was some months back the men's Tour de France cycle race was played on SBS every day for the full 3 weeks of the Tour but what about the women's Tour de France? They put in as much effort to training and racing as the men do and yet we hear nothing about them.

As well as not being equally represented in news reports on TV or the paper and allowing Australia to hear about their achievements women's sport games and events are not televised to the same extent as men's sport either. Every week during the footy and AFL seasons there would be at least one game if not more played on the Freeview TV channels. In comparison the women's National Netball competition was broadcast on Fox Sports with all 69 of their games which is fantastic but only for the people who have pay TV. SBS 2 also broadcast the Match of the Round on Sunday afternoons and the finals games. So one game per round compared to multiple football games. It's all very well for people who have pay TV but what about all the netball fans who want to watch each game but can't because broadcasters don't want to have TV that doesn't attract enough of an audience to warrant them buying the rights to broadcast? Another quote from the article reflects this "broadcasters and sponsors are not going to climb aboard anything unless there is an audience" (Kathryn Wicks, 2013). So how do we gain a better audience for women's sports?

It has long been said that women's sports are not as exciting as men's and that is why they don't have the same representation in the media, they don't have an audience so television channels don't want to waste money or broadcasting something that "people won’t watch". So to make them more exciting for men what should we do? Dress our female sports stars in all sports in bikini's? The men might cheer but I highly doubt women will. Women are already put under enough pressure to have the stereotypical ideal body shape. By actively focusing on women's bodies to gain audience attention rather than their skill on the field is an insult to women's sporting abilities. People should want to watch the game or event for the sport not the bodies on display.

In these times the media has so much of an influence on how people perceive things that until a more positive representation of women is seen in the media the level of interest in women's sport may stagnate and not improve. The pictures the media paints of women's sport shape the thoughts and attitudes of society in general. The representation of women’s sport in the media has improved but it still has a long, long way to go before it is even close to being on an equal playing field with men’s sport.

 

References

Wicks, K, (2013, October 17), World Cup the key as time-poor mums struggle to catch up with women’s sport, The Sydney Morning Herald, p 20

ANZ Championships, (2013), Broadcast details, http://www.anz-championship.com/Matches/Broadcast