Golf, U.S. Women’s Open, and Gender Bias in Sports Reporting

By Brigitte L. Nacos
Today, the fourth and last round of the United States Golf Association’s (USGA) U.S. Women’s Open, the most important event of the year for professional female golfers, is being played at the Saucon Valley Country Club in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. But contrary to the complete coverage of the recent U.S. [Men’s] Open Championship at Bethpage, New York, there has been very little media attention to this year’s championship and major ladies’ events in the past. Indeed, whereas literally all major and non-major tournaments of the Professional Golf Association’s (PGA) tour and Senior PGA tour tend to be covered generously, those of the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) receive little or no attention at all.

To be sure, this is nothing new. Yet, I found it particularly disconcerting that today’s New York Times “SportsSunday” Section displayed a large, four-column report and picture about next week’s [men’s] British Open site at Turnberry, Scotland, which was continued on an inside page. Taken together with a column by Dave Anderson on the duel between Tom Watson and Jack Nicklaus at the 1977 British Open, the Times managed to devote more space to the up-coming men’s major tournament than to the current U.S. Women’s Open.

Yes, the women’s tour does not have stars like Tiger Woods or Phil Michelson, but one reason may well be that the sports media tried too hard to promote Michelle Wie as the female Tiger Woods and more or less ignored the accomplished young players.

It is telling that the biggest story out of the U.S. Women’s Open was about players’ dissatisfaction with LPGA Commissioner Carolyn Bivens and her willingness to resign her post. While the economic downturn explains the loss of several tournament sponsorships, the meager reporting of LPGA events figures probably also into the fact that the women’s golf tour is much harder hit than the PGA and Senior PGA tours—although the sponsors of the latter provide far more generous price money. Add to that the LPGA’s decision to make the Golf Channel the exclusive cable channel beginning next year. While this may result in more generous coverage of LPGA events, it will cut down the audience size. After all, many sports fans who have access to the ESPN channels that have carried many LPGA events in the past and in the current season, do not subscribe to the Golf Channel.

While I singled out the LPGA and the New York Times to discuss gender bias, other sports pages, the TV-networks and –stations, and Internet sites display the same slants.  Why is it that the major bar on Yahoo Sports lists the NBA but not the WNBA? Why is it that Yahoo’s soccer site provides results from around the world but little or no information about the new Professional Women’s Soccer League?

Given this neglect of professional female athletes (and, of course, amateurs as well) by the sports media, it is hardly surprising that corporations are more willing to sponsor male events which assure them mass-media publicity.

I believe that the new LPGA commissioner and those leading other professional women’s leagues must address this variation on the “publish or perish” imperative.

Comments

[Project Management Software]

The fact that art is so close to sports in some situations is probably related to the nature of sports. The definition of "sports" above put forward the idea of an activity pursued not just for the usual purposes, for example, running not simply to get places, but running for its own sake, running as well as we can.

[iwc watches]

I LIKE lt

[Brigitte]

Ben Feibleman is right in that there is far less interest in women's sports than men's competition. But I believe that gender of sports reporters and/or editors is a major contributing factor here.
Today's NYT, again, lists in its Sunday schedule of events and TV coverage two golf events for male pros, Senior British Open and the Canadian Open, but not the Evian Masters in France with all top women golfers participating. And this is but a minor example that I selected in order to stay with the original post.

[Ben Feibleman]

Couldn't it just as much be a lack of popular interest (and thus lack of sponsorship) that causes the reporting gap? Just the same as the WNBA can't fill arenas and sell tickets like the NBA, so they don't pull any quality network airtime?

I think that the gender bias claim with real merit would have to fall on the consumers for not giving the players a chance, rather than the media, who have a greater economic incentive to report more on the Men's Open. It's the consumers that still treat women's professional sports as a novelty, and so they are the real wielders of bias.

I have no suggestions on how to remedy the situation save for integrating the sports and giving it time.