Media Coverage for Women Sports

    The support for women in sports is slowly increasing as the years go by. However, the media has not done much to support this. Interdisciplinary studies professor, Cherly Cooky, found that the coverage for women on ESPN's SportsCenter totaled 5.4% of airtime in 2019. In 1993, the total airtime was 5.1%. Cooky also concluded that the total was only that high because of the 2019 Women's World Cup. Without that coverage, the total declines to 3.5%. To make matters worse, both the 2019 Women's World Cup final and the Copa Oro final ( men's soccer) were scheduled to be on the same day. Regardless, the Women's World Cup final had over 1 billion viewers across the world. This created a massive amount of support for not only women's soccer but other women's sports. Then the global pandemic seized everything including sports. Just like that the coverage was gone. The National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) was the first sports team to return to playing. Although no other sports were being played at the time, only the opening game and the final game of the tournament would be televised on a linear network. All other games would be shown on CBS streaming platform. After this, the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) began their season mid pandemic as well. ESPN tripled the number of WNBA games aired throughout its networks. The WNBA also hugely supported the Black Lives Matter movement which gave an immense amount of coverage from all social media outlets to not only the league but the movement as well. As the support for women's sports continues to grow the media coverage should continue to do its part in the process.

Here is 4 WNBA teams ( Atlanta Dream, Washington Mystics, Minnesota Lynx, and the Los Angeles Sparks) wearing black lives matter shirts and Jacob Blake's name. They postponed their games in protest to the shooting of Jacob Blake. On the court the words Black lives matter is written as well.

For more information on the media coverage on women in sports: https://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/releases/2021/Q1/overlooking-her-shot-womens-sports-need-an-assist-as-coverage-remains-the-same-as-30-years-ago.html#:~:text=Their%20study%20found%20that%20in,Women's%20World%20Cup%20is%20removed.

https://theconversation.com/coverage-of-womens-sport-is-pathetic-at-the-best-of-times-the-lockdown-has-made-it-even-worse-140593

For information on how the NWSL became the first league back from the pandemic:

https://www.espn.com/soccer/united-states-nwsl-womens-league/story/4102844/how-the-nwsl-plans-to-become-the-first-us-team-sport-to-return-to-action