By Anthony Alford
This was my recent article from the Maxwell Project. It relates to the historic impact of this past weekend for women's sports. But as this article explains, is ESPN truly invested in the success of women's sports, or do they just want to promote a new superstar for their network?
This past weekend was a historic weekend for women’s sports as NASCAR driver Danica Patrick and UFC fighter Ronda Rousey both took center stage. It was a weekend in which sports media latched on to the historic female storyline.
ESPN began its NASCAR coverage in a “Sunday Conversation” interview with Patrick within 24 hours of her Daytona 500 pole win. Patrick continued to dominate ESPN coverage throughout the week. It felt like ESPN was covering the “Danica 500” rather than the Daytona 500.
Meanwhile, ESPN seemed to ignore fighter Ronda Rousey. Rousey and Liz Carmouche became the first female fighters to compete in UFC history. For years, women’s MMA has been reduced to sideshows on local and regional promotions. But Rousey had the “it” factor to allow women’s MMA to be taken seriously. However, because ESPN does not have TV rights for the UFC (Fox has a 7-year deal with UFC), ESPN felt little need to cover Rousey’s fight.
Rousey and Patrick are both mainstream stars, but if ESPN had it their way, Rousey would have never even existed. ESPN offered only 30 seconds of Rousey’s fight coverage. That’s right, 30 seconds.
ESPN’s coverage selection draws on an even bigger issue in sport. Does ESPN really care about the rise of women’s sports, or is it just a marketing ploy to benefit their outlets? ESPN covered Patrick’s race, but not Rousey’s fight because it was on another network. Sports fans should hope for competition from other networks to end ESPN’s monopoly on sports.
There are rumors of a Fox Sports 1, but those rumors say the network won’t be launched until August. Until then, Americans are stuck with ESPN and its interpretation of which athletes should make history.
On a weekend where women’s sports should be celebrated, instead we must focus on the agenda of mainstream media. Both of these ladies have earned the spotlight this weekend, however only one of the athletes got the fair treatment she deserved.
To read more blogs from the Maxwell Project, go to http://edhd.bgsu.edu/maxwell/MaxwellProject/Blog/Blog.html or the Maxwell Project Twitter page at https://twitter.com/BGSUMaxProject.
By: Taylor Cook
ReplyDeleteI also noticed the lack of coverage that ESPN showed Ronda Rousey and Liz Carmouche. I feel that the fight that happened this past saturday in the UFC was extremely monumental and should have receieved much more encouragement and coverage then it did. Ronda Rousey should be the centerpiece of any womens rights movement because she showed everyone that just because she is a woman doesn't mean she can't be a professional fighter. Don't get me wrong what Danica Patrick did this weekend was monumental as well, but the fact that Ronda Rousey and Liz Carmouche made it to the top level in a sport that almost everyone world wide considers "manly" is amazing to me. The rise of women in sport is growing immensely and ESPN needs to realize this and not worry so much about television ratings.
Just like you guys talked about, I couldn’t help but notice every time I turned on the television I would hear a story about Danica Patrick and how she won the pole position. While it is a historical moment in NASCAR and I do congratulate her, I feel that the media was focusing way too much attention on her.I liked how you called it the “Danica 500” because that’s how I felt that it became. Like you had mentioned, I have to agree that ESPN tends to focus their attention on one particular female athletes and not all the woman athletes together. To try and prove my point, on my phone I have the ESPN app that has all of the scores from the games that day and updates them in real time. On the day that the Daytona 500 took place, my phone kept sending me messages on how Danica was doing in the race. However, when I tried to choose another woman’s sport to find out scores, it would never have the scores of the games until the game had been over for a few hours. But when I wanted to check out men’s scores, the scores would be updated right away and even schools that I had never even heard of were updated before any of the woman’s sports were. I believe ESPN needs to start investing more time and effort into woman’s sports because today’s generation is starting to become more involved in woman’s athletics and I feel that ESPN is only concerned with their ratings and how much revenue they will make.
ReplyDelete-By Josh Gibson
I totally agree with each of your posts in response to Anthony's main entry, but especially this last sentence by Josh: "I believe ESPN needs to start investing more time and effort into woman’s sports because today’s generation is starting to become more involved in woman’s athletics and I feel that ESPN is only concerned with their ratings and how much revenue they will make." Thanks for sharing your perspectives.
DeleteDr. Spencer
Unfortunately, I have not seen the fight on TV and for some reason its blocked on YouTube but I know that would have been a fight to see. I recently found interest about MMA and Ronda Rousey from Anthony's post earlier this semester. Every time I flipped through the channels and ended up on Fox, I never really seen any females fight. Only men. So I feel as though ESPN should have put more of an emphasis on both Ronda Rousey and her opponent Liz Carmouche, especially since they were the first ladies to ever make it to the UFC. I think women in sports will never have the recognition they should have. This is an ongoing problem for women. They are under-represented for their accomplishments and the things they do best. Although Ronda Rousey received 30 seconds of the fight, I feel as though her and her opponent should be flooding ESPN as well as other stations. It's a shame that those two women couldn't get the attention they deserved on ESPN. I think it would've been a great idea for ESPN to share the women's UFC fight. This could have brought in a lot of attention as well as revenue.
ReplyDeleteAngel Akinkuoye
Anthony, you raise some really great questions in your blog post. First, I agree that this was a huge week for women’s sports regardless of the coverage that the events received. To answer your question about ESPN, yes they only care about marketing to benefit their own outlets. ESPN makes their money off of how many people watch their network and if they do not own the rights to a sport like UFC, they are not going to give FOX free advertisement on their station for their investment. I also believe that ESPN wants to be appealing to their audience. Would America rather watch a woman make history in one of the most popular sports in the country, or watch two women beat each other up? Once again I feel as though it comes down to ratings and Danica Patrick definitely will generate higher ratings than Ronda Rousey.
ReplyDelete-Taylor Redd
I would have to agree with Taylor about the reason for the fight, not being shown more as a result of a different television networking showing the fight. Its not that ESPN wouldn't want to broadcast the event. They didn't have the right to, so they highlighted the key parts of the event. I’m sure, if ESPN had the rights to UFC. They would have shown more of the historical significance with the event, like they did with Danica Patrick. However, at least ESPN decided to do justice with one known female star such as Danica Patrick. Before this weekend, Danica had numerous times where she finished within the top ten of races, but wasn't recognized for her accomplishments within NASCAR by ESPN. I'm just glad after everything she's been through with the Nationwide Series and Indy Car racing. She was finally able to make a historical significance within the sport of racing and be acknowledge for her skills instead of a publicity stunt, when she broke into NASCAR.
ReplyDeleteby Anthony Pape