Media coverage for women's sport
No Increase in media coverage for women since London 2012 Olympics
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/womens-blog/2014/mar/13/womens-sport-newspaper-coverage-birmingham-university
Research done from Birmingham University revealed that six of the Nations newspapers produced fewer stories from women's sport a year from the Olympics than they ever did before. Men's stories about sport outnumbered women by 20 to one in March 2013. These newspapers were the Sun, Mirror, Times, Telegraph, Mail and Express.
'76 articles about sport in these newspapers during three weekends, 39 (4.5%), related to women's sport in February/March 2012, compared with 2.9% in 2013 – not statistically significant until you reflect that 97% of sport coverage a year after the Olympic games was of men's sport.'
Dr Claire Packer, a senior clinical lecturer in public health, who led the study said: "Maybe it was unrealistic to expect the 2012 games to solve the gender bias in reporting. It needs a much bigger policy push and a bigger effort to change people's behaviour within the media."
People argue that the lack of coverage is because no one is interested in women's sport, but the interest on social media is shown otherwise. Women's football got its own series on BBC2 for a bit, whilst the women's football world cup of 2011 was at the time, the most tweeted event in the history of Twitter.
'Birmingham's researchers believe that so little women's sport being reported has an impact on public health, with few women and girls doing enough exercise to stay healthy, let alone fit. While 39% of men do enough exercise, just 29% of women do.'
Dr Packer says: "Despite the success of our female athletes both at the 2012 games and since, women's sport, at least in the eyes of the print media we studied, remains a minority sport. Until we change this perception, the levels of participation of girls and women in sport will continue to suffer, as will public health as a result."
Do we value women's sport in the UK?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/16216427
"Only 5% of media coverage is devoted to women's sport in the UK"
"This annoys me, this subject," says Hope Powell, the coach of the England women's football team, when she was asked about women's sport in the media.
"If you look in the press, the focus is on male sport and it's male-dominated. On the telly, it's male-dominated."
In a year when no females were shortlisted, women's football has enjoyed unprecedented success. Whilst this made it into the media, Powell, who is at the forefront of transforming the women's game in the UK for over 10 years, is concerned about the amount of coverage women's football receives between major events. "We get to a major final and the press are all over it. We get to the World Cup, the press are all over it. And then they disappear," she said. For an example..."We played a European Championship qualifier [against Serbia in November] and nobody knows about it. We get three points, play very well and I don't think it was mentioned in one newspaper".
"The assumption I get is the sports editors assume people don't want to read about women's football." Which is untrue as more than 1.3 m women and girls play football which is more than other sport in the UK according to the article. It also appears there is a bigger demand for the game.
"Sports broadcaster ESPN has doubled the number of live WSL games it will show in 2012 to 10, while it averaged about 60,000 viewers for each match in 2011, on a par with Scottish Premier League games."
"They [England women] represent their country. They're ambassadors and great role models but I don't think female sport gets the recognition it deserves."
"The rugby girls are the best in the world and have been for ages, so how they're not credited for that is crazy."
This has been an on-going debate. At many big football events involving England, the media always ask each year whether this is the year the game becomes mainstream.
"Everybody talks about it being the catalyst," said Powell, who will coach GB at London 2012. "We heard this in 2005 [at the European Championships in England] when 27,000 people came to our opening game".
"It's only the catalyst if the hook is taken by the media and they give us some air time and sustain it over a period of time".
"Don't just give it a one-off and see if people want to read about it. I think they do. It's the third largest participation sport in the country so there must be an interest."
Women hit the headlines in sport – why aren't there more writing about it?
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/aug/18/women-sport-rio-olympics-female-sports-journalists
After two weeks of Olympic coverage, which is a rare time for female sports stars to hit the headlines, the airways were full of women jumping, running, cycling and riding. However outside the period of major sporting festivals, evidence from Women's sports and fitness foundation has suggested that only 5% of sports coverage relates to activities by females. Women's sport attracts a very tiny proportion of the total sponsorship as well as the salaries and facilities are very small in comparison to men's. But in the UK women's football has been taken more seriously and its been given better media coverage in the past couple of years, the popularity of women playing football has also increased too.
More Women’s Sport Is Set To Air On TV Than Ever Before, But Will 2017 Really Be A Game-Changer?
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/women-in-sport-2017-how-equal-is-it_uk_58d15597e4b0be71dcf86224
"From the England team winning the Women’s Rugby World cup in 2014 to the Lionesses stealing our hearts in the 2015 World Cup, the status of women’s sport has rocketed in recent years - and with a number of women’s tournaments on the horizon, things are only set to get better." Men's sporting tournaments are always set to shown on mainstream TV, unfortunately it cant always be said the same women's sport but its shown things have got better. In the summer 2017 there was more women's sports scheduled to be shown on UK television than there ever has been before. In cricket, Sky sports it televised every match of the ICC women's world cup in June, then in August a live domestic women's cricket was broadcasted for the first time ever in British TV. In the football UEFA the women's euro tournament was on the screens in July. The matches will air on channel 4 after the station outbid the BBC for the rights. 2017 made a huge step in the right directions for women rugby, in august the women's rugby world cup was shown on a UK free-to-air platform for the first time thanks to ITV. Harlequins and England's women's rugby player Leanne Riley said the mass coverage is an essential step in pushing women's sport forwards.
mass coverage is an essential step in pushing women’s sport forward.
“The more publicity you get on the TV, the more you’ve got people watching and the more money that’s going to be thrown towards the game,” she told The Huffington Post UK.
“That will hopefully go towards the players themselves, because they’re the ones putting in the hard work so the public can watch it.”
Sport England’s director of insight, Lisa O’Keefe, adds that television helps to “normalise women’s sport” and encourage participation.
“We ought to be able to switch on the TV on a Sunday afternoon, and watch a major women’s event just as easily as a men’s competition,” she said. “How refreshing would that be?”
There was a big expectation that in London 2012 there would be a big tipping point in both sponsorship and media coverage in women's sport. The expected haven't been translated into the investment "Consumer attitudes have shifted and brands are starting to catch up but, while the BBC and Sky Sports are making huge inroads into the coverage of women’s sport, we aren’t seeing that shift," according to Miller. There has been an all time high of 45% of Olympic athletes are women, and the social media #askhermore campaign is challenging sexism in the media and continues to, industry experts believe progress will soon be matched in the media coverage.
Overview
Found a lot of interesting information with lots of facts and statistics so confident I have lot of research for this area of topic. However struggled to find any progression in media for women's sport so research is quite biased.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/womens-blog/2014/mar/13/womens-sport-newspaper-coverage-birmingham-university
Research done from Birmingham University revealed that six of the Nations newspapers produced fewer stories from women's sport a year from the Olympics than they ever did before. Men's stories about sport outnumbered women by 20 to one in March 2013. These newspapers were the Sun, Mirror, Times, Telegraph, Mail and Express.
'76 articles about sport in these newspapers during three weekends, 39 (4.5%), related to women's sport in February/March 2012, compared with 2.9% in 2013 – not statistically significant until you reflect that 97% of sport coverage a year after the Olympic games was of men's sport.'
Dr Claire Packer, a senior clinical lecturer in public health, who led the study said: "Maybe it was unrealistic to expect the 2012 games to solve the gender bias in reporting. It needs a much bigger policy push and a bigger effort to change people's behaviour within the media."
People argue that the lack of coverage is because no one is interested in women's sport, but the interest on social media is shown otherwise. Women's football got its own series on BBC2 for a bit, whilst the women's football world cup of 2011 was at the time, the most tweeted event in the history of Twitter.
'Birmingham's researchers believe that so little women's sport being reported has an impact on public health, with few women and girls doing enough exercise to stay healthy, let alone fit. While 39% of men do enough exercise, just 29% of women do.'
Dr Packer says: "Despite the success of our female athletes both at the 2012 games and since, women's sport, at least in the eyes of the print media we studied, remains a minority sport. Until we change this perception, the levels of participation of girls and women in sport will continue to suffer, as will public health as a result."
Do we value women's sport in the UK?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/16216427
"Only 5% of media coverage is devoted to women's sport in the UK"
"This annoys me, this subject," says Hope Powell, the coach of the England women's football team, when she was asked about women's sport in the media.
"If you look in the press, the focus is on male sport and it's male-dominated. On the telly, it's male-dominated."
In a year when no females were shortlisted, women's football has enjoyed unprecedented success. Whilst this made it into the media, Powell, who is at the forefront of transforming the women's game in the UK for over 10 years, is concerned about the amount of coverage women's football receives between major events. "We get to a major final and the press are all over it. We get to the World Cup, the press are all over it. And then they disappear," she said. For an example..."We played a European Championship qualifier [against Serbia in November] and nobody knows about it. We get three points, play very well and I don't think it was mentioned in one newspaper".
"The assumption I get is the sports editors assume people don't want to read about women's football." Which is untrue as more than 1.3 m women and girls play football which is more than other sport in the UK according to the article. It also appears there is a bigger demand for the game.
"Sports broadcaster ESPN has doubled the number of live WSL games it will show in 2012 to 10, while it averaged about 60,000 viewers for each match in 2011, on a par with Scottish Premier League games."
"They [England women] represent their country. They're ambassadors and great role models but I don't think female sport gets the recognition it deserves."
"The rugby girls are the best in the world and have been for ages, so how they're not credited for that is crazy."
This has been an on-going debate. At many big football events involving England, the media always ask each year whether this is the year the game becomes mainstream.
"Everybody talks about it being the catalyst," said Powell, who will coach GB at London 2012. "We heard this in 2005 [at the European Championships in England] when 27,000 people came to our opening game".
"It's only the catalyst if the hook is taken by the media and they give us some air time and sustain it over a period of time".
"Don't just give it a one-off and see if people want to read about it. I think they do. It's the third largest participation sport in the country so there must be an interest."
Women hit the headlines in sport – why aren't there more writing about it?
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/aug/18/women-sport-rio-olympics-female-sports-journalists
After two weeks of Olympic coverage, which is a rare time for female sports stars to hit the headlines, the airways were full of women jumping, running, cycling and riding. However outside the period of major sporting festivals, evidence from Women's sports and fitness foundation has suggested that only 5% of sports coverage relates to activities by females. Women's sport attracts a very tiny proportion of the total sponsorship as well as the salaries and facilities are very small in comparison to men's. But in the UK women's football has been taken more seriously and its been given better media coverage in the past couple of years, the popularity of women playing football has also increased too.
More Women’s Sport Is Set To Air On TV Than Ever Before, But Will 2017 Really Be A Game-Changer?
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/women-in-sport-2017-how-equal-is-it_uk_58d15597e4b0be71dcf86224
"From the England team winning the Women’s Rugby World cup in 2014 to the Lionesses stealing our hearts in the 2015 World Cup, the status of women’s sport has rocketed in recent years - and with a number of women’s tournaments on the horizon, things are only set to get better." Men's sporting tournaments are always set to shown on mainstream TV, unfortunately it cant always be said the same women's sport but its shown things have got better. In the summer 2017 there was more women's sports scheduled to be shown on UK television than there ever has been before. In cricket, Sky sports it televised every match of the ICC women's world cup in June, then in August a live domestic women's cricket was broadcasted for the first time ever in British TV. In the football UEFA the women's euro tournament was on the screens in July. The matches will air on channel 4 after the station outbid the BBC for the rights. 2017 made a huge step in the right directions for women rugby, in august the women's rugby world cup was shown on a UK free-to-air platform for the first time thanks to ITV. Harlequins and England's women's rugby player Leanne Riley said the mass coverage is an essential step in pushing women's sport forwards.
mass coverage is an essential step in pushing women’s sport forward.
“The more publicity you get on the TV, the more you’ve got people watching and the more money that’s going to be thrown towards the game,” she told The Huffington Post UK.
“That will hopefully go towards the players themselves, because they’re the ones putting in the hard work so the public can watch it.”
Sport England’s director of insight, Lisa O’Keefe, adds that television helps to “normalise women’s sport” and encourage participation.
“We ought to be able to switch on the TV on a Sunday afternoon, and watch a major women’s event just as easily as a men’s competition,” she said. “How refreshing would that be?”
Sexism, stereotyping and missed opportunities in women's sport
https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/sexism-stereotyping-missed-opportunities-womens-sport/1405833
'Sally Hancock, managing partner of sports sponsorship consultancy Y Sport, says that the industry has seen a greater recognition among media owners of the importance of women’s sport, driven by cash from brands including Newton Investment Management and SSE, which invested in the Women’s Boat Race and women’s football respectively. "The opportunity for brands to be a maverick and drive change is there, but rights holders need to stop looking at women’s sport as a poor relation," she explains. The Rio Olympics may not deliver a quick improvement change in media coverage and marketing investment in women's sport. The message is get in quick or you'll be left behind 'Or you will be as out of touch as the commentator who equates the awe-inspiring achievement of competing in the world’s biggest sporting event with hanging around in a shopping centre… simply because he’s referring to a group of women.'
Overview
Found a lot of interesting information with lots of facts and statistics so confident I have lot of research for this area of topic. However struggled to find any progression in media for women's sport so research is quite biased.
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