Discriminating Airwaves

By Kerry White, Thursday September 16, 2004
From the Women's Sports Fondation Weekly Newsletter

The Olympic torch has burned out, and our athletes are back in the United States. Women athletes everywhere smile contentedly—American female Olympians brought home approximately half the medals. The marquee women’s teams were the real “Dream Teams,” winning gold in basketball, beach volleyball, soccer and softball. According to Orlando Sentinel Columnist Mike Bianchi, “the Olympics are the only sporting event in the world in which women get equal billing and exposure with men.” In the spirit of the Olympic Games, equality reigned supreme, and the women played on a level playing field and got the credit they deserved.

But did they?

There is no question that the Olympics Games are a two-week oasis in the midst of a historical lack of women’s sports coverage—the only time in four years that women can tune into network TV and find other women competing. But is the coverage equal? To answer that question, we have to look at what made it onto TV. With 24 hours and no less than seven channels broadcasting, a good place to pinpoint is primetime on NBC—the channel most accessible and the hours when numbers are expected to spike and the nation is expected to tune in. On Saturday, August 14, the first full day of competition, nine men’s events were aired during primetime on NBC and only four women’s. On Saturday, August 28, the last full day of competition, seven men’s events were aired during primetime on NBC and only two women’s. From start to finish, a noticeable bias towards men’s sports prevailed.

How about our nation’s female heroes? Surely our Dream Teams saw prime time coverage? No such luck. The major women’s marquee sports—basketball, soccer and softball—received no primetime airing whatsoever. All coverage of these teams was reduced to segments of snippets from the original airing. Softball’s and basketball’s gold-medal contests were both at 9 a.m. on the USA networks. The women’s gold-medal soccer game aired at 2 p.m. on NBC.
 
Brandi Chastain, Joy Fawcett, Julie Foudy, Mia Hamm and Kristine Lilly, dubbed “the ’91ers” for being the pioneers of women’s soccer, said farewell to the sport they brought to the national consciousness in a game that aired on a weekday afternoon. Even the star power of Hamm, the female answer to Michael Jordan in both notoriety and sponsorships, couldn’t bring NBC to air more than a replay of shots on goal. Then again, the men did not receive any prime time for baseball, basketball or soccer either—but the United States did not even qualify in baseball or soccer. In basketball, though, the bronze-medal men’s game aired on NBC during the afternoon, which was a more popular slot that the 9 a.m. USA airing that the gold-medal match-up for the women received. While the women did play first in the tournament, which could account for the earlier time slot, the push of the women to a cable network represents a small dig.

These victories for the women were no surprise for those planning each nightly NBC primetime, either. The time delay from Athens was between seven and 10 hours for the continental United States, and the networks liberally edited most footage. Primetime became a showcase for contests with winning scores and uplifting conclusions. Regardless, women still were not given equal airing. The men’s volleyball quarterfinal and semifinal games, which were American upsets, were featured in prime time, while every one of the gold-medal-winning women’s softball team’s games were played in the morning on NBC cable affiliates. Were the networks dedicated to airing medal-winning competitions only? Well, the women won more than 40 medals, almost half the total count.

Of course, some argue, the medal count is a nice number to throw around, but don’t more men compete in the Olympic Games? According to the IOC, there is only one sport that excludes women—boxing. With the recent addition of softball and the inclusion of women in water polo, wrestling and other sports, there is practically equality in Olympic sports available to women and men.
 
Within specific sports, there are disciplines that may exclude one gender, such as synchronized swimming and rhythmic gymnastics, but these favor the women. And in terms of participation, this year saw a staggering leap in female participants worldwide, with women representing 44% of all Olympic athletes.

That being said, the Olympic Games do offer the unique chance to see women play sports on television and read about them in the newspapers, which is a refreshing deviation from normal male-sport dominated programming. With national pride superseding all else, a whole nation, men and women, rallies behind its athletes, both men and women. Tennis and golf tend to offer the only regular primetime or network sports coverage for women, while the WNBA finds a home on NBA-TV and the Pro Fastpitch games are broadcast by the YES network. Thirteen-year-old Ariel Shaker did a study of male/female media coverage of her local collegiate teams in 2000 and found a 330% difference in the men’s coverage vs. the women’s. Our weekly television listings for women’s sports rarely feature major networks and often rely on daily morning workout shows to fill in our daily listings.

Want to see a change? One way to make a change in day-to-day coverage is to watch women’s sports on television. Use our television listings (linked below) to check the TV listings of women’s sports on your networks. If you see a network you don’t have, call your cable company and expand your service. More importantly, follow the link to write a letter to ESPN, demanding to see more women’s sports in the sea of men’s coverage. Be proud of our Olympic athletes, but don’t give up the fight for equality in women’s sports. Maybe that Olympic afterglow we bask in now can help make the playing fields truly level for women’s sports to come.
 
For article and television listings go to:
http://www.womenssportsfoundation.org/cgi-bin/iowa/issues/article.html?record=999