Women's Sports Media Coverage

An article from CNBC titled "The unlikely media interest in all things women's sports" by Michelle Castillo discusses the lack of media coverage in women's sports. It continues to discuss a women's lifestyle media company called Refinery29 which

typically focuses on beauty and fashion has decided to incorporate branding out into sports coverage. Refinery29 is a website that follows a newsletter format. It is broken down into six sections with additional sections that offer content geared toward specific cities in the Untied States. It is a great social media platform as many people check the website as if they were checking other mainstream media sites such as Twitter or Facebook. It might seem strange for them to start coverage of women's sports, but with the lack of women's sports coverage, the company might actually find great success in doing so. 

The company's main focus has always been to celebrate women and their amazing achievements. Building up a community of incredible female voices. Incorporating sports coverage will just show their great range of highlighting all women, no matter what their interests are. Whether those interests are beauty, fashion, and now, even sports. This will be a great marketing and commercial benefit for the company. 

Just how sparse is coverage for women's sports anyways? A research center called The Tucker Center for Research on Girls and Women in Sport at the University of Minnesota says that 40 percent of all sports participants are women but only 4 percent of sports media coverage is dedicated to those sports. We've been told for decades that females aren't really good at sports and that they don't really want to play anyway. Female athletes work so hard but yet don't get any respect or credit for what they do. Females when compared to their male counterparts are usually portrayed in media off the court, out of uniform, and in highly sexualized poses. The challenge for women's sport is producing a product that is worthy enough for coverage. It needs to be based on talent and good stories. It needs to be engaging that shows off the sport and makes sure that there is a good story to tell. 

According to the article, women make up 45 percent of NFL fan base and thanks to the U.S. Women's Soccer Team, American interest in the sport among both genders has increased. Because of the level of interest in sports, there is a huge market there. I agree as I think that there is a very large population of people that are genuinely interested in sports among both genders. There are just not as many companies that capitalize on this interest level. I think that it is extremely smart of Refinery29 as they will be able to gain a lot more business due to this new investment. 

But despite this potential, some media buyers say that much of the media and advertisers still are hesitant to commit to women's sports coverage. They are too busy comparing the lack of viewership compared with men's sports.  While this is true, there aren't very many viewers, but if more companies displayed it, and it was more actively available, then that would more likely increase viewership numbers. The more people are easily able to access to it will allow for more people to talk about what they see and encourage others to view it also. It is true that traditional broadcast and old media still play a significant role in connecting sports fans to women's sports, but it is now enhanced by new media platforms. 

Recruiting Athletes

There are many different aspects that go into the recruiting of an athlete. There was an article written by Doug Samuels on June 17, 2016 titled "7 things college coaches want to see in a prospect's social media". Not only is talent in the sport vital to a recruit's future with a collegiate team, but how the recruit showcases their life on social media will affect the decision a coach will make when deciding what type of players they most likely want to join their team. Coaches typically want players who are good at the sport and a good person. 

The first thing the article discusses is that coaches want a player that is a true fan of the sport. Meaning they post or share about decisions being made in real time and understand why a team went for two instead of kicking the PAT. They like to see that they can actual analyze and understand the game. A coach stated: 
“They will def know about and retweet any crazy highlight that they saw – but I love when a recruit / player tweets about the details of a particular game. It shows me a level  of maturity when it comes to the game of football. It shows me how they spend their free time.”

The next thing the article discusses is that coaches like to see that they show respect to the other people in their lives. For example, showing respect for family members, previous coaches, and teachers. You are definitely able to tell a lot about a person by the way he or she treats their family. A coach mentioned: 
“It also shows that the recruit isn’t ‘too cool’ to interact with the people who provide so much for them. In a round about way, that shows a level of gratitude in my mind.”

Other things the article states are that coaches look for athletes who are supportive of other winning teams, those who are not sore losers. Also those that are tweeting about positive things in life. Recruits may not understand that social media is so prominent nowadays and that prospective coaches are smart enough to do their research on the athlete before signing them on. This reminds me of an article published by the same author, Doug Samuels, about a year ago, when three separate college assistants tweet about dropping a recruit based of their social media. The coach assistants stated, "how a young person's social media presence can have a direct reflection on their recruitment". There is nothing in the NCAA social media policy that states that coaches cannot "stalk" their prospective recruits on their social media sites. Coaches obviously cannot post on their wall or things like that, but athletes need to remember that things posted on the internet are out there for all eyes to see. Once on the internet, it will always be on the internet.

Another thing I found interesting from this article was that coaches are going to watch for when an athlete tweets or posts complaining about certain things. Athletes need to be careful about what they complain about. They shouldn't be complaining about high school workouts, because not only are college workouts more intense, but they are also early early in the morning (5:30AM or so). So no athlete should complain now about working out in high school, coaches will notice and won't be able to imagine how they will be able to embrace the workouts required in college.  

The social media platform an athlete holds is very critical to the success in their recruitment process. Prospective athletes need to be very careful how they display themselves across all different medias. Understanding the importance of acting mature online will benefit any athlete who desires to play at the college level. 

Sports Social Media Policy

On October 9,2016, ESPN senior writer Darren Rovell writes an article titled "NFL teams can be fined for posting video under new social media policy". It describes the NFL's newly introduced part of the social media policy they have. It states that teams may no longer shoot video inside the stadium during games and post it on social media, nor may they use other live stream apps such as Facebook Live, Periscope or anything of that measure to stream anything live within the stadium. Teams cannot take highlights of what happens on the field and make it their own by using their own video and posting it directly on social media. Teams also cannot turn highlights into animated GIFs. Sources say that the league executives want to make sure that the content that is being generated within the stadiums is hosted by only the team websites so that the league maintains control of what is distributed to the public. In other words, executives want viewers to go through the official NFL channels to get their video content.

Any violation of this policy will cost teams $25,000 upon the first instance, $50,000 upon the second instance, and $100,000 for any additional violation of the policy. This seems like a ridiculous request by the NFL if you ask me, and many other teams agree. Teams have come up with ways to mock this new policy. For example the Eagles mock this new regulation by creating new and creative methods of tweeting highlights of games without violating the new rule. This website displays a twitter GIF that was when the Eagles played the Redskins and Malcolm Jenkins made an interception, the members of the Eagles team created a video of an old-school electric football game that recreated the play. 

I understand that this preventative policy is to allow the NFL to maintain control over what is displayed to the public and to control how fans view certain content, but what about what they are taking away from the fans? Sometimes the best content are the ones that you find from players that post about it. Fans thrive off of following their favorite players or teams and ultimately enjoy watching or reading the content they post. Wouldn't you think that the NFL would gain more viewers if they didn't make such stupid regulations? These regulations against live streaming video content just made teams want to mock the rules. Hence the videos that were created that were made into highlight GIFS anyways. Why does the NFL feel the need to control this aspect of the league? Instead of banning teams from live streaming video altogether, why don't they just ban what type of content they can stream? I understand that it is impossible to monitor every potential social media avenue an athlete has access to. Athletes have too many social media options nowadays, but that is the generation. Social media is how most news travels the fastest. Fans follow athletes and athletes post for fans. I think the NFL's social policy regulations are too strict and I believe if you are a member of a team you should be able to post whatever you please, with of course, regulations on inappropriate content. Athletes should be allowed to post whatever they would like as long as it is posted in a positive way toward the team they represent. They obviously need to be aware of who is taking videos or pictures of them and making sure they are not behaving in an inappropriate way that would make their team look bad, but I think such strict regulations are stupid. I mean it's only a sport. Let people live their live how they want. If they want to post videos, let them. Why make everything so strict? I believe that regulations like this will just spark the players that have rebellious personalities to post live videos anyway, in spite of the new regulations, causing more damage than if there was no regulation established in the first place. I think content will get leaked whether there are regulations or not, so why create them in the first place? Unless, secretly, this is how the NFL knows they will make more money. Maybe they know that teams will get so annoyed by the regulations and break the rules, making it so teams will owe multiple fees and the NFL will continue to gain money and more money. Who really knows? All I know is that this seems like a stupid regulation.