The coverage of women’s sports in the mainstream media is about to get a huge boost, thanks to USC professor of sociology and gender studies Michael Messner.
In June, Messner co-authored a study for the Center for Feminist Research at USC that revealed how media giants, especially ESPN, were starving women’s sports coverage. As a result, ESPN is launching a brand-new channel, called espnW, that is marketed specifically toward women. The channel will launch online this fall, with the possibility of becoming a television channel in the spring.
“They’ve made the commitment,” former professional tennis star Billie Jean King told The New York Times. “I don’t think there’s ever been this much planning, research and commitment before.”
Messner’s study found that ESPN’s flagship program SportsCenter devoted only 1.4 percent of its coverage to women’s sports last year, as opposed to 2.1 percent in 2004. It also found 96.3 percent of the lead stories on SportsCenter and on KNBC’s, KCBS’ and KABC’s sports news segments came from men’s sports.
Though adding espnW seems like a step in the right direction, Messner isn’t so sure.
“Yes, it’s going to give women’s sports fans a place to go,” he told The New York Times. “But it might ultimately ghettoize women’s sports and kind of take ESPN off the hook in terms of actually covering them on its main broadcast.”
Read the full story at the Daily Trojan.
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