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.

Maxwell Presentation: The Next Big Thing

Post by Brady Munger

In attending the Maxwell Project presentation, I learned a great amount from Mr. Goren. There was one that I learned from him that I really remembered after the presentation.  This was his outlook on how to be successful. He explained you always have to be looking for “the next big thing” to be successful in the sport media world. I have heard this advice plenty of times before he had said this, people have always told me if you have the next great idea you will be a millionaire. But when he said it, he supported it with so much and really went behind the words and what they actually meant. He explained how there is more to the next big thing, than just an idea. You have to look at the current trends, and what people are beginning to like and capitalize on it and create the next trend. He said if you can come up with the idea that revolutionizes the culture, and changes the way things are done on a regular basis then you know you have something. He supported this by giving us examples of what he has done, from the in studio field and playing surfaces, to the on screen score board. These are simple and basic ideas to us, but are things that completely revolutionized the way sport media is portrayed and changed the game completely. These are the type of things that he explained of being the “next best thing”. It was amazing to think just how simple ideas such as those, can completely change the culture of the industry. I realized the next big thing, might not be all that big after all. It is just the one thing that will change everything. I really took this piece of advice to heart, knowing that anything, no matter what it is can be the next game changer whether it big or small and can be the one thing to build you career around.

With learning this from Mr. Goren, I really thought about my future career and what I could do. I thought of all the possible small things, not only from a media sense, but to a sense of my true ambition in operations. It’s all about not feeling good enough with the way things are. I took a sense of never being satisfied, and always trying to find better ways to do things. Whether that is in simple things from day to day activities, or large scale things that could change the entire operation of the organization. Every next step and every next discovery is the next big thing. These are the things I will strive for in my career, and the things everyone should realize are the things they should be looking for. The sport industry is an ever changing. There is a never a statement of, we are here and satisfied, it is always what is next and what can we do now. To be looking for the next positive way to change it is how you will be successful in your professional career. 

Draft Coverage

Blog Post by: Nathan Wahle

We all know about the NFL draft because Todd McShay and Mel Kiper are on ESPN almost every day from the moment the NFL season ends all the way up to draft day. I do not know how others feel about this because I am sure everyone has their own opinions; however, I find the coverage of the draft repetitive and bothersome. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the NFL draft and I think it would be beneficial to have all this coverage leading up to the draft. I just think when it comes to sport coverage; football is gaining status of a monopoly. This is just referring to sports covered on ESPN and not even going specifically into men's sports versus women's sports.

This brings up my main point which is the WNBA Draft. The WNBA Draft was held this past Monday and might have been the most quietly promoted and produced sporting event this week. The draft was apparently held on ESPN or ESPN2 during the mid to late afternoon hours this past Monday. So, to begin with the coverage was not even during primetime for television viewing and was during the work week. I know on a personal level I would still not have known that there was a draft if I was not watching Sportscenter Monday night where they took all of about fifteen seconds to go over the top five picks in the draft and then they moved on. Again, from a personal standpoint, I have text alerts come to my phone from ESPN whenever there is major news in sports and I did not receive a text for anything from the WNBA draft. Furthermore, that same day I received a text from ESPN saying that Indiana University offered an eighth grader a scholarship for basketball. Again, there was a special news conference held in a primetime spot (unlike what the WNBA Draft received) to announce that the Kentucky starting five were entering the NBA Draft.

It is incredible how we feel as though women's sports are receiving close to equal treatment as men because this week has been painfully obvious how untrue that is. I think this unequal treatment was temporarily forgotten due to ESPN doing a pretty decent job offering close to equal coverage of the NCAA Women's tournament as the Men's; however, that was fool's gold because coverage alone of the NFL Draft might equal the total amount of all combined women's sports coverage. I believe ESPN made a statement by the lack of their coverage and attention towards the WNBA Draft. They are making it clear that women's sports is nowhere close to being as important as men's sports and this is what will need to change if we ever want equality in men's sports versus women's sports.

Frozen Four Response

The 2012 Frozen Four From Tampa Bay FL.

Gender Differences in the Media and Team Relations

Brady Munger

Over the past week, I spent my time in Tampa Bay Florida working hand in hand with the NCAA for the entire Men’s Frozen Four (the hockey equivalent to the final four).  Over the week, I had an all access pass, in which I had access to any part of the rink, as well as access to talk to anyone in the media, teams, or organizing committees.  Over the duration of the week, I took great care in looking at the media and the teams present and noticing and taking not of gender differences among the different means of media from print reporters, to online columnists, to radio and television. As well as media I looked closely at the team operations and observing the role women played for some of the teams and how their role was compared to others.         

Media wise, I was pleasantly surprised to see the amount of females that were present at the tournament. Seeing as hockey is a sport largely dominated by males, I suspected there to be a majority number of men in the press box from the media. But upon observing the numbers I was surprised to see a large quantity of females on hand. Upon my rough calculations, 40 percent of the reporters present from the news paper or online news sources were females.  This number was a surprising figure to me in that there were almost an equal number of males to females, my predictions were that there would be a large majority male and I was wrong to an extent.  For the higher media I was right on the target though. The television media and radio media were all dominated by males. There was not a single female either in radio or in television at the event. This did not come as a surprise; hockey being a masculine sport the two major form of live media radio and television were dominated by males. This comes from a consumer point of view, when you tune in to listen on the radio, or watch on TV you pair the masculine voice of a male with the sport, and it promotes the masculinity of the game as a whole and makes the audience portray the host to be more knowledgeable.

From a team perspective, I was pleasantly surprised to see the amount of females working with the teams. 2 out of the 4 teams have a female worker representing their team. But after some investigation, finding the positions the women held made more sense to me and fit more of the “feminine” roll.  They both were assistant SID’s (sports information director), and their main duties were to coordinate with the press for meetings and talk to reporters to schedule interviews and open up for players during the interviews. I found this kind of typical, having a woman who is generally more welcoming and softer dealing with the camera’s and press putting on the smile at all times.  It was not surprising to see these roles filled by them, as it is sort of a stereotypical job for a female to hold.

The other large thing that I noticed for gender stereotyping was that of stereotyping the anticipated crowds. Upon visiting the apparel stands I was looking at the choice of clothing souvenirs. For men there were over 20 different shirts to choose from, short sleeve, long sleeve, hoodies, crew cuts; but there were only 2 things specifically marketed towards women. Both were t-shirts and one was pink and one was purple. I found this very surprising; upon walking through the crowds I noticed that there were a large number of females in attendance. This is an event where a lot of couples travel to together for years and years. Over the weekend I met a couple who had been going to frozen four’s since BGSU won it in 1984. I was surprised to see the limited number of female apparel available, and am still curious to wonder whether it was a guess that the crowd would be dominantly male and stereotyping the dominant masculine fan base, or if women would want the same t-shirts as men.

Lastly, was the use of the promotional schemes at intermissions and extended breaks. The tournament had what was called the “capital one girls” (capital one being the main sponsor), that would do different activities and games on ice during the intermissions and time outs. What it boiled down to be was a perfect example of the NCAA trying to use sex appeal to sell its product to their consumers. It had nothing to do with hockey, and they would center the girls on the megatron and on the camera and having them interact with the audience, and only once over the entire weekend did I see them involve a girl. I was surprised to see this at play at an NCAA event, but then again whatever helps sell people will use these days.

Overall it was an interesting thing looking at the gender differences and comparisons at the event among the teams and Medias. The one thing I did not touch on was the organizing committees. I was pleasantly surprised to see a number of NCAA staff members being female. The majority actually from the NCAA were female works which was a surprising fact to me. At such an important event you would automatically by gender stereotypes assume it would be male dominated authority roles, but the majority of the NCAA authority positions were females, which I thought to be very interesting and surprising.

Anthony Davis and Brittney Griner

Blog post by Mark Chipperfield

This blog post looks deeper into the comparison that can be made between the player of the year in men’s basketball (Anthony Davis from Kentucky) and the player of the year in women’s basketball (Brittney Griner from Baylor). Personally as an intense follower of the game of basketball I find this comparison to be fascinating. There are many similarities between the two in terms of physical stature, how they play the game and how they are viewed by the general public.

 Based on the slide we saw in class there is an obvious comparison between the two in terms of physical stature. Anthony Davis is listed as 6’10’’ tall and weighs 220 pounds while Brittney Griner is listed as 6’8’’ tall and weighs 208 pounds. They also have comparable wingspans while wearing the same size 17 shoe. It is interesting to me that in a time when guard and wing play are dominating both the NBA and WNBA that two big post players are simultaneously dominating the game at a collegiate level.

Probably the place where these two are most similar is actually in their playing styles. Statistically these two are very, very similar. Both are shooting very similar field goal percentages with Davis shooting 62.3% and Griner shooting 60.7%. Both of these are very high as a result of both players putting up the majority of their shots in the paint. They also use their length in order to get their shot over smaller defenders. It is interesting as well that both are in the process of developing a consistent jump shot. They both shoot relatively well from the free throw line (Davis at 71% and Griner at 80%) so it is likely that they will have the capability of expanding their games by extending their range. The place where these two impact the game the most of course is on the defensive end. With both setting NCAA single season records with the number of blocks they tallied up this past season. Griner was able to average 5.2 blocks a game while Davis ended up with 4.7 blocks a game. Obviously having anchors like this to protect the paint is important to team success as both lead their teams to national championships over the past couple of days.

A final way that these two athletes are comparable is through the negative way some members of the general public look at them. When watching Kentucky play with a group of people it is close to impossible to watch a full game without others making jokes about Anthony Davis’ unibrow. With Brittany Griner I have heard many people say thoughtless comments like “she has to be a man”. It is sort of strange to me that these two legends of college basketball can be viewed negatively by some. But in the twitter age when everyone is trying to make the funniest remark in 140 characters or less maybe this is just the time we live in.

Sports Talk Radio

This blog post is meant to touch on the subject of sports talk radio as we did in class and how it is an influential source of information.  Sports, in general, have become a huge part of our society today and are only continuing to grow.  Although sports talk radio is not the only or even the most popular source of sports media, it still plays a big role in the sports world.  I sort of view sports talk radio as politics because there are many different radio hosts out there and it seems as though a particular person who follows sports tends to favor one radio host much more than all the others.  Sports talk radio hosts take the latest news and they implant their opinions into the matter.  Nothing that the radio hosts say have any influence on what news they are talking about; however, they all tend to have a certain way of connecting to specific audiences who feel the same way as the host does.  Much like political parties, people tend to agree on the views and beliefs of one particular radio host than any other.  An example we talked about in class of this was the "clones", who are extreme followers of Jim Rome.  These people are heavily influenced by the views and stances that Jim takes on any particular subject matter and as a result adopt those same views and beliefs as their own.  To further my point, in class this past Monday, Dr. Spencer asked the class if they had a specific sports talk radio host they preferred most and pretty much every student had one.  Not only did we as students talk about what we liked about our favorite radio host, but we also expressed our dislike for competing radio hosts.

So while Sportscenter and sports news on television or sports news in the newspaper or on the internet is most likely a more popular media form to obtain the current news in sports, sports talk radio appeals to the sports fans who like to go more in-depth on the matter.  Sports talk radio appeals to those who have a strong passion for sports and have certain views and beliefs that they want discussed.  I almost view sports talk radio as a form of psychology or like we said in class therapy, where people turn to their personal radio host they connect to best in order to deal with a certain event that is going on in the sports world.  Ultimately, sports talk radio brings personality and a connection with the fans to the world of sports.


Blog post by Nathan Wahle

The RUIMUS Accident

The RUIMUS Accident

Author: Brady Munger

On April 4th, 2007 Don Imus stirred up one of the largest race related and gender related controversies in recent history.  During his radio show, Imus made multiple remarks about the Rutgers University women's basketball team that shocked the nation.  The show full of "A list" politicians and all white crew as the article by  Gill explained, made some racy and gender fueled remarks that insulted the Rutgers women's basketball team, as well as women athletes all over (Gill pg. 119, 2011).  Between Imus, and Buddy McGuirk the executive producer, there were multiple different remarks made directed towards the players.  They included the players being called "Nappy headed ho's", "Jigaboos" and "some hard core ho's" (pg. 119).  When these were said on the air to a national audience it created a huge controversy, that included both social and civil activists, as well as many other groups.  Their was an outcry and a back lash directly from what he said, which led to many people demanding many things from the incident.  As a result of this, Imus was fired and was held out of his job for 8 months before being rehired.  

There were multiple things in this incident that I found sickening.  Other than the obvious things like the comments he made, there were other things that bothered me very much.  The first thing was how it was handled as a whole.  Although Imus was initially fired, he now has his job back and is back on the air which I feel should never have been allowed.  Secondly, when he was let go he got a very large settlement of money, while the lady's on the basketball team that had to go through the incident received nothing. I find this awful, Imus was able to say these terrible things, and then walk away with money because he was let go. It should have happened much differently.  Imus should have been fired with no settlement, and never allowed back on the air again.  Those are the ignorant things that happen in society that need to be taken care of and stopped immediately before they spread.

A large discussion point in class about this incident was what do we determine as wrong in today's society.  Someone brought up the point of the Chappelle show, and how they use certain terms such as this routinely. But with these two things, I believe there is a huge difference.  The first, is that the show is a complete form of entertainment.  It is not an attack on real life things, and is solely made to entertain people.  With the RUIMUS incident, it was not a form of entertainment, but an attack on something real in life.  He attacked the AMATEUR basketball players, and embarrassed them and shamed them in front of the entire nation.  Second, with the Chappelle show, it rarely attacks specific individuals.  But with the RUIMUS case, Imus attacked specific individual people in the Rutgers Team.  He called out the team, and slandered them with racial and gender slurs that were very offending and not meant in any way "entertaining" or joking.  Overall, I found this incident very offending and hurtful.  It regressed all of the progress society had made on gender and racial equality in one quick segment.  It shows how disrespectful some people truly can be, and shows that there still is a sense of racism and gender inequality in this nation and that it still exists.