Overview Of Sport & Gender

Post by: Nathan Wahle

This class ended up being more than just a requirement for me.  Not only did I learn a lot but this class was an experience.  This class provided me the opportunity to evaluate the world of sports as it really is and the subtle messages that sports convey.  Unfortunately, due to this class being based on the differences in gender in sport, it allowed us to really pick apart this specific subject matter and the items and ideas that were uncovered were not pretty.  Plus it was not just the gender side of sports that revealed an ugly truth but many of the main discriminatory areas in our society also appear in sport.

Here are a couple of the main subjects:

1) The overwhelming more coverage that men's sports receive over women's:

Strides were made this spring during the men's and women's NCAA tournament when ESPN really did a nice job of trying to equalize the coverage of each tournament.  Brittney Griner really helped the women's game because she was a story all by herself and ESPN fell in love with following hers and Baylor's run through the tournament.  However, outside of that, men's sports rule supreme in our media and an example of this has been the absolutely ridiculous amount of draft coverage the NFL is receiving right now and just a couple weeks ago the WNBA draft barely got a sniff from ESPN.  All the WNBA could muster up was 4 o'clock coverage on a weekday on ESPN2 for the live draft but no hype leading up to it or after it.

2) The stereotypes between white and black athletes:

The best example that was brought up in class for this was the Cam Newton and Tim Tebow one.  ESPN reported on how this past season that both Cam Newton and Tim Tebow were struggling with their respective playbooks.  However, the way they described the adjustments made by the teams, it fit the stereotypes that the media and society has taught us.  They said that the Broncos had to adjust the playbook for Tim Tebow but the Panthers had to dumb down the playbook for Cam Newton.  This is a major problem and needs to be fixed in our society the way we adhere to unfair stereotypes.


So, this class has taught me a lot and has been an eye opening experience which I plan on taking advantage of when I enter the sports world in a career.  Hopefully this class will be a reason for how I can make an impact in sports.