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Underexposed

Study shows that women's sports lag behind men's in terms of media coverage

BY SALLY HUGGINS
Staff Writer

Despite major strides in the development of women's sports, coverage in the nation's sports pages continues to lag far behind that of men's sports, according to a recent study at Vanderbilt University.

In one case, the study found that even with a "local" team making it big in the women's sports world during the period of the study, men's sports received 82 percent of the coverage while women received 11 percent.

But there are reasons for optimism, say those who are involved from different perspectives.

For instance, Tara VanDerveer, head women's basketball coach at Stanford University, reported that the Stanford women's team receives comparable coverage to the men's team.

And the editor of one of the newspapers studied said he sees the study as a good wake-up call to the national media.

The Vanderbilt study was conducted from March 11 to April 7, 1996, using the sports sections of USA Today, The (Nashville) Tennessean and The New York Times.

Elizabeth D. Gilbert, doctoral student in educational leadership, and Sharon L. Shields, professor of human development, both at Vanderbilt, developed the study as a project for a class to illustrate how women's sports are portrayed in the media.

They intentionally chose for their study a four-week period that included the NCAA Division I Men's and Women's Basketball Championships.

"We picked a period that would show coverage before the tournaments, during the tournaments and after the tournaments," Gilbert said.

"We thought we might be biasing it in favor of women because we thought Tennessee, in particular, might get a lot of women's coverage."

The women's basketball team at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, won the women's national title March 31 at the conclusion of the three-week tournament.

Studies in the past have shown women receive seven to eight percent of sports coverage. The Vanderbilt study showed 11 percent, Gilbert said, indicating that the tournament did not skew the numbers much, if any.

Frank Sutherland, editor of The Tennessean, acknowledged the value of the study. He noted, however, that only the sports pages were examined and that The Tennessean frequently places coverage about the women's basketball team on the front page of the entire newspaper.

Men getting most coverage

"But having said that, the study still shows men getting the preponderance of coverage," Sutherland said. "We have had many a debate about the importance of a story. Even if it doesn't have good attendance, it may have good drama.

"If the survey serves a purpose for the news community, it is that these discussions ought to take place if you want to be in on the trend with women's sports."

Mary Jo Kane, associate professor of sport sociology and director of the Center for Research on Girls and Women in Sport at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, said the Vanderbilt results were borne out in studies at the Minnesota research center as well.

"I am not the least bit surprised that that is what they found," Kane said. "That is very consistent with other data we have here. The media continue to under-report women's sports."

The purpose of the study was to analyze media coverage of sport in one major Southern city newspaper, a major Northeastern city newspaper and a nationally circulated newspaper to learn whether coverage of women's sports had increased in comparison to the increases in women's sports participation.

The study focused on coverage issues related to gender, types of sports reported, competition level, visual images and article location within the sport section.

With the premise that basketball is the sport in which the most parity has occurred at the intercollegiate level, the authors felt it was essential to evaluate media exposure received by the men's and women's competition.

During the four-week period, 37 percent of the media coverage was devoted to intercollegiate basketball. Within that coverage, 81.5 percent was devoted to males while 15.2 percent was devoted to females. Three percent of the articles and notes reported information related to both genders.

Sixty-six sections examined

The study involved 66 sports sections from the three newspapers and included 3,529 articles. Forty-four percent of the articles reported came from The Tennessean, 43 percent from USA Today and 13 percent from The New York Times.

When including all sports coverage in the three papers, men received 82.1 percent and women 11.1 percent, with 5.6 percent covering both genders.

Men's and women's basketball received the highest coverage during the period. Golf and tennis were the second-highest categories for women (20 percent) with baseball receiving the second-highest amount (23 percent) for men. The third most-reported sports were softball for women (7.2 percent) and ice hockey for men (11 percent).

Photographic coverage also favored men, with 19 percent of the articles accompanied by pictures of males. Pictures of females accompanied only four percent of all articles written. For every 4.9 pictures that appeared for men, there was one picture for women.

Coverage should reflect interest

Patty Viverito, chair of the NCAA Committee on Women's Athletics, said the committee has discussed how the visibility and image of women's sports has changed over the years, partly because of Title IX. She said the increasing participation in women's sports needs to be reflected in the coverage.

"It's all about perception," Viverito said. "You don't want to admit it, but image is everything. Unless women's sports are positioned in a way that is exciting, that is glamorous for the general public, it is not as valued."

Kane said the two reasons the media most frequently give for providing less coverage of women's sports are that women aren't participating and that the public isn't interested in reading about women's sports. She disputed both explanations.

"If you look at the attendance data, people are interested and desperate for more," Kane said. "I am not asking the media to buy into my social agenda. I am asking them to reflect what is already happening. They are not reflecting the reality of what is already happening in women's athletics."

Attendance and a championship team have spurred the improved coverage in the Bay Area of California, VanDerveer said. VanDerveer's teams have won the Division I national championship twice and reached the Women's Final Four four times.

A boost also has come from reporting of the top 20 women's basketball teams in local papers, Van Derveer said. People are interested in how the teams progress during the season.

It is a chicken-and-egg type of situation, she said: Attendance brings coverage and coverage brings attendance.

"Attendance is a major factor," she said. "And the more people read about a team, the more people want to see it."

But attendance cannot be the only gauge, The Tennessean's Sutherland said, because while women may draw 5,000 patrons compared to 15,000 for men, it should be recognized that a few years ago the women's team may have drawn only 500 people.

"You can't get too far out in front of your readers but by picking up on the drama when it's there, you can provide coverage," he said.

VanDerveer feels that the good coverage women's basketball receives at Stanford will carry over to other women's sports. Already coverage of women's soccer is improving, she said.

"What will help other sports is attendance," she said. "As numbers grow, coverage will follow."

Women's sports have prospered despite the lack of coverage, Kane said. More than 30 percent of collegiate athletes are women, she said, indicating a large audience for women's sports.

"What is amazing is not that there's so little interest or coverage of women's sports," she said. "It is that there is so much interest in women's sports despite the virtual blackout of coverage."

Soccer example

As an example, she noted that 76,000 people attended the championship game of women's soccer at the Atlanta Olympics despite relatively little coverage.

How to convince media to cover women's sports more equitably is the issue now. On that matter, Viverito is optimistic.

"It changes every time a sports editor has a daughter who plays soccer," she said.

Gilbert said The Tennessean invited Shields and her to discuss the results of their study and to suggest possible changes. After the discussion, she was pleased with the interest shown in providing better coverage.

"One of our goals was to get a dialogue started, and we did that," she said.

The impact of how much space and placement of the coverage may be illustrated through another study Gilbert and Shields are conducting.

Gilbert said that study involves interviews with preteen girls about their experiences in sports. During the interviews of 80 girls, only three mentioned women's sports figures as role models: Two mentioned Jackie Joyner-Kersee and one mentioned Nancy Kerrigan.

"Our question was, are they not seeing them (the female sports figures)?" she said. That's where sports coverage becomes an issue, she said.

Kane said pressuring sports editors to provide more coverage of women's sports is an option, but it is not necessarily the most effective tool. Convincing them that it is economically to their advantage to provide more coverage of women's sports would be most effective, she said.

"You will not turn media around by saying you should join our agenda," Kane said. "You will not win that argument.

"It doesn't mean people shouldn't call editors and put pressure on them to report more. But the question is why aren't they covering more women's sports. Women are participating and people are interested."