The Gender Gap in Women’s Sports
On February 24th, after six years of fighting, The US Women Soccer Players Association won a settlement on discrimination and unequal pay. It was agreed that female U.S. soccer players would be paid $24 million to equalize pay and bonuses to match the men’s team.
That is a step forward, but the issue remains. Unequal pay is one element of the gender gap in women’s sports. To think that unequal pay is the only issue is to be close-minded and believe that money resolves everything. What causes the gender gap is the minimal attention paid to female athletes, which causes low rates of popularity in women’s sports.
Articles in sports magazines address women staying in shape rather than hitting game-winning free throws. A 2018 study in Body Image found female Olympic athletes featured in Sports Illustrated issues posed in ways unrelated to their sport (i.e. posed, facing the camera, smiling, tight clothing). By contrast, the magazine portrayed male athletes participating in them or training, highlighting their endurance and strength.
The media portray male and female athletes in completely different ways. Male athletes are depicted as tall, muscular, and fast, with their arms crossed and intimidating grins. Male athletes are often shown in magazines or online articles dunking the game-winning shot. On the other hand, female athletes are posed and described through the lens of traditional feminine values including motherhood, beauty, grace, and aesthetics. They are not valued as athletes because it is not “lady-like,” critics say. Female athletes are valued for their bodies and sexuality rather than what they bring to the playing field.
Most times viewers cannot recognize a female athlete without a headline or caption. Female athletes are not recognized by the audience because of the way they are asked to display themselves. Women in sports are not allowed to portray the athletes they truly are. In a 2019 analysis of about 1,600 Instagram images from NBC, ESPN, FOX Sports, and CBS Sports, researchers found that in the overwhelmingly small percentage of female athletes covered, almost half appear in a passive state and outside of their field of play. Male athletes were displayed in athletic positions in 80% of their pictures.
It is quite rare to find a sports magazine or website that glorifies a female athlete’s statistics and/or highlights, that not being the case for male athletes. In terms of statistics, the data that is available for WNBA players is minimal compared to NBA players. The NBA website shows data such as Hustle Stats which includes charges drawn, deflections, pull-up shooting efficiency, and even how much distance a player covers per game. On the WNBA website, such data does not exist. All you find is traditional box score data, “clutch time” stats, and lineup analysis. With this disrespect comes a gap in investment, sponsorship, and media coverage.
According to the WNBA it is simply too expensive for them to collect and share the statistics as the NBA does. Second Spectrum, a company that the NBA uses to track its players, has been cost prohibitive for the WNBA. Not all WNBA arenas are equipped with the cameras needed to follow players throughout their in-game motions and collect data.
Women’s sports are not marketed and promoted as much as men’s sports. Without marketing and promotion, how is it possible to maintain fanbases at arenas and stadiums that would generate enough revenue for the equipment and personnel needed to collect data? With limited data to show, there are little ways to educate fans about their favorite players and teams to create experiences that are attractive and engaging. To give an example, a USC/Purdue study reported that 95% of TV coverage focused on men’s sports in 2019. Coverage devoted to women’s sports in the sample of daily online newsletters and social posts from publishers on Twitter was 8.7% and 10.2%, respectively. Out of 93 newspapers, eight out of those stories were about women’s sports. It goes back to the fact that women’s sports are thrown under the rug. People just prefer to watch male athletes because that is traditional. It is not traditional for a woman to be an athlete: active, brave, strong, and muscular.
I would like to close off with a quote by legendary WNBA player Sue Bird. Sue has made unbelievable strides in tightening the gender gap in women sports. Data helps drive conversations, strategy, decision-making. But data on its own is not terribly interesting. It needs context. It needs a storyteller. Data helps tell the story of a player, a team, an entire career. I believe that women’s sports would strongly benefit from two factors: better data storytelling and increased acceptance. If more data on women’s sports were to exist and society would be down to engage with that data, women’s sports would eventually become more popular, therefore causing the gender gap to decrease.
