Media coverage of women’s sport under severe criticism from many professionals

As Women’s Sport Week draws to a close we ask the frequent question, ‘is women’s sport getting the coverage it deserves?’

In it’s second year, the Women’s Sport Week aims to close the sports participation gap between women and men, and increase the coverage.

As it stands, there are currently 1.6 million more men playing sport per week than women according to Active people Survey.

Two years ago we saw England Women’s Rugby Team win the World Cup in France, and even more recently, the hockey team won gold at the Rio 2016 Olympics.

We’ve seen coverage on women’s sport gaining more and more attention and with Tennis leading the way since the first women’s singles competition at Wimbledon in 1884, the hope is that other sports will follow.

However, there is still a substantial amount of sexism within sports.

In the news recently, Sparta Prague Goalkeeper Tomas Koubek, 24, said “Women belong at the stove” when assistant referee, Lucie Ratajova failed to flag an opponent in last week’s match against Brno.

Fellow midfielder later tweeted a picture of the official with the caption, “to the stove.’ Both players have subsequently been made to train with the women’s team.

Basketball is an extremely male-dominated sport and Megan Dunkerton plays for her local team and competes nationally.

She said: “There is an extremely low percentage of female coaches in the sport, and as a result, hardly any female role models.”

Continuing, she said: “The GB women’s basketball team does not get anywhere near the same hype as the men’s does. There’s been a male professional league in Britain for years now (BBL), and the 2014/15 season was the first time a senior professional women’s league was introduced (WBBL). People don’t hear about it unless they’re in the basketball circle. Female sport in general gets very little media attention, and kids taught in schools learn very different sports based on their gender.”

The media coverage on women’s sport is still extremely low, making up just 7% of all sports media coverage in the UK, and newspapers only covering 2% dedicated to women’s sport.

Alice Royal is President of Kent University’s Sailing club and also competes. She says that women in sport are still not equal to men, especially in football, rugby and cricket where crowds are much bigger and matches are televised during prime time for the male games.

She said: “Pay within sport is becoming more equal with the winners of Wimbledon now getting the same, but in a lot of sports this isn’t the case. There is a large effort by universities and clubs to encourage female athletes to participate at high level and more of a spotlight is being given to the women’s game through campaigns such as Red Roses campaign in rugby.”

“In my sport, sailing, it is still very much a man’s world. Sailing clubs have mostly male members but at professional level men and women are represented with both winning many medals at the Olympics. The Royal Yachting Association (RYA) are running lots of events such as ‘Ladies that Launch’ which is helping many women of all ages get into the sport for the first time or back into it,” she continued.

“As for equality; it is getting there slowly but I can’t see it happening in the big sports such as football and rugby without a lot more media coverage being encouraged and schools and universities making more of an effort to get girls and women to keep playing to a higher level.”

As part of women’s sport week, the BBC has had a special column each day by a female sports personality to increase awareness and encourage equality.

One of these was former Williams Formula 1 test driver Susie Wolff, and she explains how the Dare to be Different concept is encouraging more young girls to take up different roles within motorsport, from engineering and journalism to racing itself.

The industry is slowly changing and Wolff hopes to see a female driver established in F1 in the next 10 years.

Helen Such, 21, is a part of the women’s rowing team for Reading University and competes across the UK. She believes that British rowing is quite equal, with women’s rowing being televised as much as men’s.

However she does feel that this is a different story with lower level rowing. “There is still a lot of discrimination within club and university rowing. Men might have more focus put on them as they are faster.”

“I think within other sports equality is a lot worse, for example within athletics where women are watched less on TV and are encouraged to wear very small outfits compared to boys, all for the aesthetics of the performance.”

We still have an exceptionally long way to go in establishing women’s sport let’s not forget the significant milestones that we have overcome.