Tidbits and Stories Related to Women’s Sport

Since there is so much going on in women’s sport right now I thought I’d post some stories, links and videos of interest.

WOMEN’S WORLD CUP 2011 (WWC, #wwc2011)!

Who has caught the fever and excitement? I’m torn about the coverage because the WWC has been fantastically covered by ESPN and ESPN2. However given that coverage of women’s sport has DECLINED since the 1999 USA World Cup win, women’s sport is only on ESPN Sports Center is less than 2% time, and appears only 1.6% on major networks, we should consider the big picture of overall coverage patterns (for the full report by Messner & Cooky, 2010 click here). When female athletes are featured, it is usually in ways that sexualize them, which is why the WWC coverage has been such a nice example of covering women’s athleticsm. Just for fun I typed in “women’s sport” into Google Images, and the FIRST picture I got was this one of beach volleyball. It really makes me wonder why this picture is first…one step forward, one step back….

There has been some interesting dialogue about the coverage of WWC 2011 in comparison to the WWC 1999. Until Sunday’s game unforunately the WWC was barely a blip on the radar. While fans watch hours of men’s sport that is boring, lopsided, and not compelling, it appears that women’s sport is only “watchable” when it is drama filled, dramatic spectacle.

Read the SI.com piece by Georgia Turner here, and read Wendy Parker’s blog on why she is sick of female athletes having to be “role models” and “good girls” and why she thinks the way to promote female athletes is through their athleticism (well played Wendy!). I also like Jennifer Doyle’s From a Left Wing blogs about the WWC. There are so many good blogs about the WWC on Women’s Talk Sports, I can’t possibly mention them all.

Rachel Maddow did a great segment on MSNBC about the USA v. Brazil game and fans’ reactions to that game (most of whom are young males!). The fan segments challenge notions that young men aren’t interested or don’t watch women’s sport. LOVE IT.

However, just when there is hope (not just Hope Solo, the goal keeper for the USA WWC team) for legitimate coverage of women’s sport, I get a link sent to me about this story on the WWC with the headline “Brazil Didn’t Mind Losing to the U.S. Women Because the Goalie’s Hot.” SIGH….another step back.

And just for fun and unrelated to WWC, watch a funny and clever video of Justin Timberlake as he tries his hand at a variety of college sports, leading up to his presentation of the Capital One Cup trophy at the ESPYs.

Let’s not leave out men’s sport. Read After Atalanta’s blog critiquing an espnW opinion piece about “overweight MLB players” Good stuff!