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.