The opportunity to play is something women have been fighting to have for over 100 years. Fighting for women’s equality in sports, let alone equality in sports advertising and sponsorship has always seemed to be an uphill battle. It wasn’t until 1912 that the Olympics allowed women to compete at all, and then they were still kept from competing in many sports because they were believed to be too fragile or weak. Even with the passing of Title IX, it wasn’t until the 1984 games that women were allowed to compete in the Olympic marathon.
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| Joan Benoit Samuelson crosses the finish line of the 1984 Olympic Marathon |
President Richard Nixon signed Title IX of the Educational Amendment of 1972, which states that any educational program receiving Federal assistance can lose its funding if it discriminates on the basis of sex. This legislation was a great opportunity for women because it gave female athletes access to better equipment, coaches, playing fields, and travel budgets. Many people believed that over time, the passing of Title IX would create an even playing field between men’s and women’s sports, at a minimum on the collegiate level. They also hoped that if women’s sports were more competitive on the collegiate level, it would eventually spill over, making them more competitive on the professional level.
Equality in professional sports has been recently thrust in to the media, thanks to Finland’s Olympic goalie (hockey) Noora Räty, who plans to retire after the Sochi Olympics unless she can play in a competitive league that doesn’t require her to work a second job. The reality is that while there has been some improvement, women’s sports and female athletes remain grossly underrepresented in the sponsorship and advertising arena, are continually objectified by the media, and lack the same opportunities for playing on a professional level as their male counterparts.
Women have struggled for years to be seen and considered as equals in all areas of life, including sports. It is not hard to find examples of female athletes that struggle to gain sponsorship when they are so underrepresented and objectified in the media. Women only made up 5% of the covers of Sports Illustrated between 1954 and 1978, and more recent studies are showing there is not much more of a difference (Rowe, 2004, p. 146). In fact, in 2010 there were only two women to appear on the cover of Sports Illustrated, Brooklyn Decker, the wife of Andy Roddick, in a string bikini, and Olympic Skier Lindsay Vonn, strategically bent over in a position that would be unlikely to achieve when actually skiing.
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| Comparison of Lindsey Vonn's cover in 2010 and male downhill skier A.J. Kitt in 1992 |
In a study done by the Women’s Sport Foundation, it was found that 62.4% of the 2010 Olympic coverage by selected American newspapers, including the New York Times, was focused on male athletes. Of the 37.4% given to women, they were treated as “sex objects” in the photos, and their prominence in story placement was greatly reduced (Smith and Wrynn, 2010). According to our text, “The image of women in the media is already a heavily sexualized one (van Zoonen 1991), meaning that whatever activity a woman is shown to be engaged in is likely to present her as sexual being first and foremost” (Rowe, 2004, p. 150).
The little attention that women get in sports photography that is not sexually focused is more in line with them being passive or dependent, with a highlight to their male coaches or their link to their spouse and/or children. It’s as if a woman must have a man guiding her, or if she is a wife and mother those are her primary roles in life. How often are male athletes shown as the doting husband or father? I’m a sports enthusiast, and I can’t recall that ever being shown in photos or otherwise. From time to time you might see a nice puff piece on an athlete and their family, but in the sports world, that can and will most often be seen as a weakness.
They also seem to have a hard time getting fair television coverage. In an article recapping the Game Changers Conference in 2013, WTA Chairman and CEO Stacey Allaster stated that less than 10% of coverage on ESPN is dedicated to women’s sports and there is an even smaller percentage being covered on SportsCenter. In the 2010 study done by the Women’s Sport Foundation, ESPN’s SportsCenter devoted 1.4% of its air time to the coverage of women (Smith and Wrynn, 2010). The frustrating thing is that women are being seen on ESPN, they are just not being seen as athletes. In an analysis of ESPN’s programming written about in The Televised Sports Manhood Formula, the authors describe their findings, “In 23 hours of sports programming, viewers were exposed to 58 incidents of women being portrayed as sexy props and/or sexual prizes for men's successful athletic performances or correct consumption choices” (Messner, Dunbar, & Hunt, 2004, p. 234).
ESPN has recently made some effort to increase its programming of women’s sports by launching espnW in June of 2012. This channel is dedicated to exclusively airing live women’s sporting events, and while it is a step in the right direction it does not solve the overall lack of coverage.
The LPGA’s CFO Kathy Milthorpe placed some of the responsibility back on women, at the Game Changers Conference, to cover female sports (Madkour, 2013). While that is a great thought in theory, the fact is that according to the US-based Association for Women in Sports Media, only 3% of the nation's 10,000 print and broadcast sports journalists are women (Rowe, 2004, p. 57).
It seems to be a chicken-or-the-egg scenario with media coverage, audience expansion, and sponsorship spending. Sponsorship won’t grow unless the audience size is expansive enough for them to warrant spending the dollars, but people won’t know/be able to watch the sporting events if the media isn’t covering or airing them and the media coverage won’t increase until the sponsor’s pony-up money. Even though most companies now try to maintain an “equal-opportunity” policy, simply because of the uprising they could face if they didn’t, major sporting events are struggling to find the sponsors they need. This has been seen even now by the Women’s Tour, a cycling event that will go around England for five days in May. In an article published in The Independent, organizers for the event have received responses from companies stating that, “We don’t believe anyone is interested in women’s sport,” and “we focus our sports investment on men” (Dugan, 2013). After hearing these statements, it is not surprising that only 0.5% of sponsorship money in Britain goes to women’s sport, even though they have many successful female athletes. In fact, after the 2012 Olympic Games only 3 of the top 10 Olympic sponsorship earners were female, and only 1 is still competing (SkySports, 2013).
Unfortunately some female athletes have subjected themselves to wearing more sexually appealing uniforms or aligning themselves as sexual objects in order to try to attract broader audiences, and thus gain additional sponsorship revenue.
Women who decide to buck the system and focus on their strength and sport have to be careful because they could find themselves subjected to criticism. In the excerpt of Deborah Stevenson’s article about Women, Sport and Globalization she states, “Women who breach the boundaries of sports femininity and appear too muscular, powerful – or, indeed, too good – are subjected to subtle forms of discipline which ensure they and their sport do not threaten the superiority of men” (Stevenson, 2004, p. 280). Why must women fear the backlash of being strong and athletic?
The fight for women’s equality in sports and sports advertising and sponsorship is still a continual uphill battle. While many people hoped that over time, the passing of Title IX would create an even playing field, the truth is it has not achieved that level. As hopeful as we all may be that this is on the path to change, we must understand that it is up to us as human beings to stand up and require change in the media and hold our sponsors accountable. We can hope that in the future, women’s sports and female athletes will find themselves to be adequately represented in the sponsorship and advertising arena, no longer objectified by the media, and have the same opportunities for playing on a professional level as their male counterparts.
Resources
Dugan, Emily. "Women Cyclists Face an Uphill Climb to Attract Sponsors." The Independent. Independent Digital News and Media, 08 Dec. 2013. Web. 18 Feb. 2014.
"Fewer Women in Top 10 Olympic Sponsorship Earners Now than before 2012 Games." SkySports. N.p., 22 July 2013. Web. 18 Feb. 2014.
Madkour, Abraham D. "Can Women's Sports Get Media/sponsor Support?" SportsBusiness Daily. Street & Smith's Sports Business Journal, 30 Sept. 2013. Web. 18 Feb. 2014.
Rowe, David, ed. Critical Readings: Sport, Culture and the Media. Maidenhead, England: Open UP, 2004. Questia. Web. 18 Feb. 2014.
---. Sport, Culture and the Media: The Unruly Trinity. 2nd ed. Maidenhead, England: Open UP, 2004. Questia. Web. 18 Feb. 2014.
Smith, Maureen M., and Alison M. Wrynn, PhD. "Women in the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games." Women's Sports Foundation. N.p., Nov. 2010. Web. 18 Feb. 2014.
Vingiano, Alison. "Finland’s Olympic Female Hockey Goalie Says She Will Quit If She Can’t Play On A Men’s Team." BuzzFeed. N.p., 18 Feb. 2014. Web. 18 Feb. 2014.
