Double Standard in Sports
Broadcasting
History of Mass Communication
Brianna Ebel
4/26/2012
This paper will show that there is a double standard for women in the field of
sports broadcasting. The three main points that will be discussed include: players lack of
acceptance of women reporters in the locker room, the stereotype that women reporters
are only “sideline eye candy” and the gender bias that female sportscasters are held to a
higher standard than male sportscasters.
The history of women in sport broadcasting is not pretty. Most men thought that
women had no business being involved in sports in any capacity. It was not until a
federal court decision in 1972 that women were even fully allowed to play sports. On
June 23, 1972, President Richard Nixon signed Title IX into law. Title IX stated: “No
person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in,
be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program
or activity receiving Federal financial assistance” (Mitchell, 2007).
With the passing of Title IX, came a flood of female athletes and along with these
athletes also came the slow trickle of female sports reporters. Many female reporters
believed that with the acceptance of women playing sports, there would also be the
acceptance of women reporting sports. However, this was not the case.
Female reporters were not even allowed into locker rooms after games until a
lawsuit was won in 1978 that allowed equal access for female reporters. The lawsuit was
filed by Sports Illustrated reporter Melissa Ludtke who, during the 1977 World Series,
was prevented from entering and interviewing players in the locker room by the Major
League Baseball Commissioner, Bowie Kuhn (Richard, 2004).
As of 1996, women consist of only about 3 percent of the approximate 10,000
print and broadcast journalists (Penn, 1996). According to a 2006 study, only 47 news
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stations in the United States employed female sports broadcasters. A Ball State
University survey in 2005 showed “that only 7% of local sports anchors and 10% of local
sports reporters are women” (Sheffer, 2007). An Institute for Diversity and Ethics in
Sport 2006 study showed “women make up less than 13% of newspaper sports staffs”
(Sheffer, 2007). Research has also shown that it is not just sports anchors and reporters
who are predominately male. According to Sheffer (2007), “86% of all sports editors,
copy editors and assignment editors at newspapers” are men.
Women have made some progress in the sports broadcasting industry. The first
women sportscaster in America was Phyllis George, who co-anchored “The NFL Today”
TV show from 1975 to 1984 with Brent Musburger (Richard, 2004). It wasn’t until 2001
that Lesley Visser became the first female broadcast analyst for an NFL broadcast
(Sheffer, 2007). According to Sheffer (2007), Visser was also “the first female sideline
reporter at the Super Bowl.”
Even though some women are starting to gain more acceptance in the field of
sports broadcasting, most still face a lot of resistance and discrimination. One way that
women sportscasters are being challenged is in the locker room. There have been many
instances of harassment and discrimination towards women reporters who are just trying
to do the same thing their male counterparts do: get into the locker rooms to interview
players.
One such occurrence happened in 1985 involving sportswriter Paola Boivin as she
entered the St. Louis Cardinal’s clubhouse. A Cardinal player blocked her way and asked
“whether she was there to interview someone or to look at a bunch of guys’ penises”
(Richard, 2004). In the next moment, a sweaty jock strap flew through the air, hit her in
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the head, and then fell to the floor. She then turned and ran from the room (Richard,
2004). No one stood up for her or said a word about the incident.
In 1986, one of the more alarming episodes occurred. Susan Fornoff, a
sportswriter for the Sacramento Bee, received a package while covering a Kansas City
Royals-Oakland Athletics game. It was a pink box, which she opened to find “a live rat
with a note attached that read, ‘My name is Sue’” (Richard, 2004).
Another case is when San Jose Mercury News reporter, Annette John-Hall, was
arrested during the Washington Redskin’s 1988 Super Bowl parade. A security guard
disregarded her credentials and believed that she was just an eager fan trying to get in to
see the team. The charges were later dropped (Turner, 1991).
An incident on September 17, 1990, resulted in a lawsuit being filed against the
New England Patriots and now former team member Zeke Mowatt. Mowatt had exposed
himself to Boston Herald sports columnist Lisa Olson when she was in the team’s locker
room. He also made lewd remarks and gestures to her, including fondling himself and
asking her, “Is this what you want” (Richard, 2004). Olson said that other players joined
in: crowding around, gyrating their hips and “daring me to touch their private parts”
(Richard, 2004). Ten years later the lawsuit was finally settled outside of court
(McNamara, 2000).
Other discrimination occurrences involved legendary Penn State University
football coach, Joe Paterno, and NBA great, Charles Barkley. According to McNamara
(2000), Barkley had commented that “women reporters had no business covering men’s
sports and should stick to women’s sports.” In the mid-1980s, Paterno did not want
women reporters in the locker room, so he “closed the locker room to everybody”
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(Richard, 2004). And more recently, former NFL quarterback Brett Favre was accused of
sending a lewd picture to a female sports reporter.
The second challenge that female sportscasters face is being seen only as “sideline
eye candy” or as a sex symbol. According to the Bing Dictionary, the definition of a sex
symbol is a “sexually attractive celebrity” or “someone whose fame is linked to a widely
perceived sex appeal.” The term “sideline eye candy” refers to attractive sports reporters,
who are employed to increase male viewers.
With definitions like this, it’s not hard to see why many of the women sports
reporters “were former beauty queens and cover girls” (Gunter, 2011). According to
Gunter (2011): “Phyllis George was hired as a sportscaster in the mid 1970s. Even
though George was a hard worker, most viewers only saw this former Miss America as a
sex symbol, not a reporter. George was not hired for her knowledge at all; her job was to
add femininity to the male-dominated broadcasts.”
Women are “often considered ornamental or superfluous” (Sheffer, 2007). People
believe that women sports reporters are just meant to be pretty faces to entertain the
male-dominated audience. Sadly, this stereotype has forced women to believe that it is
the norm. Pam Ward, ESPN sideline reporter since 2000, said in a 2008 USA Today
interview that “More than 90% of [women who ask me for career advice] want to do
sidelines… That’s what they see as possible… They see it as a female role” (Gunter,
2011).
Paul Finebaum, a sports director for WIAT-TV in Birmingham, Alabama, said:
“Not to get overly sexist, but from my standpoint, some of them have been put on the air
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more for their looks than for their brains… got some complete airheads, who I don’t think
could, to steal an old phrase, spell cat if you spotted them the c and the t” (Parker, 1998).
In 2000, Playboy held a contest called “Choose America’s Sexiest Sportscaster,”
where “the magazine asked its readers to vote on its website for the ‘hottest’ among 10
female sports personalities” (Sheffer, 2007). Jeanne Zelasko of Fox Sports, who was not
part of the contest, said in response to the contest, “When I talk to young women about
careers in this field, do I advise them to get a solid background in sports and reporting, or
do I tell them to enter a beauty contest” (Sheffer, 2007).
According to a study by Sheffer (2007), news directors seem “to believe that
viewers would accept a female sportscaster if she was a ‘beauty queen.’” One of the
male news directors who participated in the study said, “Female sportscasters with a
certain look are a hot thing in television” (Sheffer, 2007). Another male news director
participant said, “I feel females are expected to be more attractive to appeal to a male
audience, and sometimes sports knowledge is sacrificed in favor of finding an attractive
female” (Sheffer, 2007).
Gunther (2011) did a focus group study about female sport broadcasters, in which
one college-aged male participant said that “he believed many stations hired the more
attractive ones simply to retain their broadcasting licenses in order to stay in business.”
The study also showed that people think “stations began hiring women… in the 1970s
purely to be seen as politically correct and to remain viable from a commercial
standpoint” (Gunther, 2011). Another respondent for the study, who happened to be a
female sports broadcaster, commented that she knows of a few women sports reporters
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who are not very knowledgeable about sports but “received their jobs over men simply to
fulfill such perceived quotas” (Gunther, 2011).
It has also been perceived that women sportscasters are often targets “because
they have the ‘backstage access’ to one of the most powerful and revered symbols of
male superiority in American culture, coupled with a public voice, through the media, to
criticize men” (Richard, 2004). Women hold a very distinctive position when it comes to
the relationship of power between the sexes. According to Richard (2004), “For men to
regain control, women have to be reassigned to the role of sex object.” Men are
threatened by the power that women could take from them, so they try to discredit them
by only viewing them as sex symbols with little sports knowledge.
A study by Grubb (2010) that interviewed several female sports reporters showed
that derogatory, sexual comments made by players towards female reporters still happen
today on the sidelines. This shows that it’s not just the TV audience that views women
sportscasters as “sideline eye candy.” The players also view female sportscasters that
way as well.
Several participants of the same study commented “that the looks of female
sportscasters were perceived as a major concern by the networks and that image was a
higher priority for female than for male sportscasters” (Grubb, 2010). One of the
participants of the study, Kristin Tallent, said, “They were just looking for a girl and they
did not care who they hired as long it was a female” (Grubb, 2010). Another respondent,
Robin Adams, “recalled a close friend of hers working at the ABC affiliate in Buffalo
who had not renewed her contract because viewers thought she was ‘ugly’” (Grubb,
2010).
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The study by Grubb (2010) found “that women sportscasters were predominately
seen as sideline reporters, anchors and sport program hosts.” It was also noted in the
same study that “Mostly, women are not employed in positions such as play-by-play
announcers, booth announcers or color analysts and few women sportscasters have
advanced toward General Manager, Sports Directors, or similar executive positions”
(Grubb, 2010). This means that while women are the “sideline eye candy,” they can’t
seem to get many jobs elsewhere in the sports broadcasting field.
This leads me to my third and final point: the gender bias that female sportscasters
are held to a higher standard than male sportscasters. Many women feel that they are
“butting against a glass ceiling, a hierarchical system that prefers men for the top jobs”
(Richard, 2004). Women are not viewed as having much sports knowledge. Therefore,
many female sports reporters have to go above and beyond to prove that they know what
they’re talking about.
According to a study done by Hardin and Shain (2005), 85% of females working
in the sports journalism field feel that they are not seen as equals because of their gender.
Women sports writers are sometimes asked to downplay their feminine qualities and
exhibit masculine qualities so that they “write just like a man” (Sheffer, 2010). Lynn
Zinser, Colorado Springs Gazette sports columnist, said that a lot of the issues men have
with women sports reporters are because “many editors are part of an old boys network,
and they feel there’s little risk in hiring a man to fill a sports position” (McNamara,
2000). For example, former NBC sports reporter Hannah Storm stated that once during a
job interview the news director told her “he would hire a woman [sportscaster] over his
dead body” (Sheffer, 2010).
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60 Minutes contributor, Andy Rooney, said in 2002: “The only thing that really
bugs me about television’s coverage [of football] is those damn women they have down
on the sidelines who don’t know what the hell they’re talking about. [A] woman has no
business being down there trying to make some comment about a football game”
(Sheffer, 2010). Another instance is a comment from Keith Hernandez, broadcaster and
former professional baseball player, when he saw a woman in the dugout during a game.
He said, “I won’t say that women belong in the kitchen, but they don’t belong in the
dugout” (Sheffer, 2010).
This stereotype about women sports reporters shows that some men do not even
give women a chance. They automatically think that women are dumb when it comes to
sports. Jim Willi, a researcher who has studied reactions to female sports reporters, said,
“Most female sportscasters start with an 0-2 count on them just because men, for the most
part, feel they just don’t have the knowledge of the sports they want from their
sportscaster” (Parker, 1998).
Beth Adubato, the first female sportscaster at WIAT, said that early on in her
career she was quizzed on very basic sports facts on a local radio show. Adubato also
commented, “If I were a guy, I would not have had to go on and justify my sports
knowledge” (Parker, 1998). Another female sportscaster, Robin Roberts, said that in
1986 when she started a job as sports reporter at WSMV-TV in Nashville, she had not
even aired yet when an older man called. He told her that he didn’t like her. He went on
to say: “I don’t like any woman sportscaster. They don’t know what they’re talking
about” (Parker, 1998).
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During a study, a female news director commented: “Women must have an
extremely strong knowledge of sports or they will be rejected by viewers. They are put
to tougher standards by men who watch sports” (Sheffer, 2007). In the same study, a
male news director also said: “viewers as a whole hold women to a different standard
than men when it comes to on-air positions. They [females] are sometimes perceived as
having less sports knowledge than their male counterparts” (Sheffer, 2007).
In a study by Ordman and Zillmann (1994) the research showed that a clear sex
bias existed because women sports reporters are being perceived as less authoritative than
men. The study also suggested “that gender is an asset for a man seeking acceptance as
an expert sports reporter, but a liability for a woman” (Ordman, 1994). Another study
reported that “even the most attractive and knowledgeable female sports broadcasters
were perceived to be less credible than male broadcasters that were visibly less attractive
and less knowledgeable” (Gunter, 2011). With a statement like that from researchers, it’s
no wonder why both men and women alike believe that there is a gender bias in the
sports broadcasting industry.
In conclusion, this paper shows evidence that there is a double standard for
women in the field of sports broadcasting. Multiple incidents have shown that players
have a lack of acceptance of women reporters in the locker room. Research showed that
the stereotype that women reporters are only “sideline eye candy” does exist, with more
attractive women getting the job of sports reporter. It was also shown through research
and examples that there is a gender bias because female sportscasters are held to a higher
standard than male sportscasters.
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References
Grubb, M. V., & Billiot, T. (2010). Women sportscasters: navigating a masculine
domain. Journal Of Gender Studies, 19(1), 87-93.
Gunther, A., Kautz, D., & Roth, A. (2011). The Credibility of Female Sports
Broadcasters: The Perception of Gender in a Male-Dominated Profession. Human
Communication, 14(2), 71-84.
Hardin, M., & Shain, S. (2005). How women in sports media assimilate into their
careers: A survey of practitioner. Paper presented at the annual convention of
AEJMC, San Antonio, Texas.
McNamara, T. (2000). `You're a dumb broad'--and that's progress. Columbia
Journalism Review, 38(5), 43.
Mitchell, N., & Ennis, L. A. (2007). Encyclopedia of Title IX and Sports.
Greenwood Press.
Ordman, V., & Zillmann, D. (1994). The stronger women get, the more men love
football: Sexism and the American culture of sports. New York: Harcourt Brace
& Company.
Parker, D. (1998). A Sporting Chance. Electronic Media, 17(39), 26.
Penn, F. (1996). Absolutely Fabulous. Women's Sports & Fitness, 18(7), 33.
Richard, S. (2004). Offensive Interference. American Journalism Review, 26(6),
54-59.
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Sheffer, M., & Schultz, B. (2007). Double Standards: Why Women Have Trouble
Getting Jobs in Local Television. Conference Papers – International
Communication Association, 1.
Turner, R. D. (1991). Black Women Sportswriters and the Locker Room Wars.
Ebony, 46(4), 170-178.
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