Women in Sports Broadcasting
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The intention in this paper is to explore the expanding role of women in sports broadcasting. Television sports is one of the unifying elements of popular culture, as witness the current focus on the Olympic games. For the most part, however, sports television has been the domain of male sports figures, male broadcasters, and male viewers. This has gradually changed over the past few decades, although male events tend to remain the most popular, with the Super Bowl, NCAA and NBA basketball finals, World Series, and Indy 500 at the top of the ladder. However, there has been increasing interest in women's events, and sports such as figure skating and gymnastics that seem to appeal more to women. Nonetheless, the field remains dominated by men, with women only gradually moving toward strong minority representation. In order to understand the development of the role of women sports broadcasters specifically, and the current limits on women in sports broadcasting, it is important to have some background information about the development of television sports. The first section focuses on this historical background, with later sections specifically focusing on women broadcasters. Television is a relatively new technology and medium of communication. Sports broadcasting has been a part of television from the beginning, with the first broadcast of a baseball game between Columbia and Princeton occurring on May 17 of 1939. Immediately following that, he
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ying like men," which probably helped to create the perception that they could comment on the game from a male perspective.
This continues to be an issue, even though women's sports participation has been on the rise for the past two decades. The career of the one of the major tennis commentators, Mary Carillo, presents a clear example. Mary Carillo actually did play tennis herself. That is not the issue. What has been made an issue during this decade is Mary Carillo's coverage of men's tennis. On several occasions, John McEnroe, who has also served as a tennis commentator, stated that Mary Carillo, and other women, were inappropriate commentators on men's tennis, because they had never played it. According to him, this lack of experience actually playing men's tennis invalidated their commentary. Again, this was his stance even though Mary Carillo played women's tennis as a professional for several years ("Very mixed doubles," 1993).
Carillo, like McEnroe, got her start as a sports broadcaster in tennis because she fell into that second category of broadcasters, that of women who had been sports performers. However, unlike Chris Evert or Martina Navratilova, Carillo had not been a star, and was not an immediately rec
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Pam Oliver, Summer Olympics, Phyllis George, Lesley Visser, Mary Carillo, Gayle Gardner, Jane Chastain, Martina Navratilova, Series Indy, World Series, sports broadcasting, women sports, women's sports, television sports, sports broadcasters, women sports broadcasting, phyllis george, mary carillo, de varona, lesley visser, male sports, women sports broadcasters, donna de varona, wide world sports, figure skating gymnastics,
Approximate Word count = 3849
Approximate Pages = 15 (250 words per page)
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