Interrogating inequalities in Sports Media: Examining gender/race representation in ESPN

I watch ESPN every single day. SportsCenter, which is an hour-long segment on ESPN that showcases the main sporting highlights of that day, is one of the more popular segments on their program. The majority of that hour is spent covering male athletes and male sports, while coverage of female athletes seem to be minuscule. Though ESPN has made steps towards attracting the female sports fans, such as with the introduction of ESPNW, gender inequality still thrives within sports media.

In the past year alone, ESPN Magazine featured only four women on the front covers of their magazines. Out of the four women, two of them were not athletes, and the two athletes who were featured posed in the nude for ESPN's "Body Issue." Many of the covers showcase the male athletes posing in their uniforms or in an action shot, while many of the female athletes seem to just be posing and showcasing their figure rather than their athletic abilities. Within the pages of the magazine, it's much of the same; plenty of pictures of male athletes showing off their athletic talents, while pages dedicated to female athletes focus more on their physique, with the occasional action shot of a female athlete. When visiting ESPN's website, it is much of the same. Their top tabs to click on do not feature one female sport. You have to go into the "More Sports" Section if you wanted to find anything that had to do with female sports. Most of their top stories feature male athletes.

While I feel gender inequality in sports media is an issue, I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that their is not a large amount of women sports fans who care to watch ESPN anyway. I feel that if there was a greater female audience that regularly viewed ESPN and its contents, the issue would be much easier to solve. But because ESPN is so dominant amongst the male population, many male viewers don't really care for updates on female sports, therefore, ESPN does not show it. As stated earlier, ESPN has taken steps towards reaching the female audience by creating ESPNW, which is specifically dedicated to female sports and athletes, and hiring more female sportscasters for their SportsCenter segments. While these may be good attempts at attracting more female sports fans, a better attempt needs to be made at showcasing the athletes abilities and their performance rather than on their physique.

References

"ESPN: The Worldwide Leader in Sports." ESPN. ESPN Internet Ventures, n.d. Web. 11 Feb. 2015.

"ESPN Cover Store." ESPN Cover Store. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Feb. 2015