The Cal Poly women’s basketball team is 18-8 (10-4 Big West Conference) and the men’s basketball team is 7-18 (3-10 Big West), yet the men’s team is averaging over 2,000 fans per game while the women’s team has just over 500. Fans usually prefer winning teams over losing teams, so why is there such a big difference between the attendance numbers for the Mustang basketball teams?
I did a little bit of research and also asked some friends to see what sorts of answers were out there and, surprisingly, found some similar ones.
First, most people seem to find the majority of women’s sports “boring,” a word I saw across Web posts and heard from friends, both male and female. Besides three main exceptions (tennis, figure skating and gymnastics) people seem to think of women’s sports as unexciting. Even female friends who participate in sports said they didn’t like watching women’s sports (with the exception of those three already stated).
Title IX in 1972 paved the way for gender equality in sports and as a result women are competing and participating in more and more sports. But the number of women who actually watch sports, either on TV or in person, is not large. The audiences watching women’s sports like basketball and soccer are mostly made up of men.
A columnist for ESPN.com, Stacey Pressman, was quoted in a New York Times article “Ideas & Trends: Why Don’t Women Watch Women’s Sports?” as saying, “I’m bored out of my skull at women’s basketball games. I prefer a few women’s events, like tennis, but I refuse to be politically correct about basketball. I’m sorry, but 40 minutes of underhanded lay-ups is not entertaining.”
I’m all for equality for men and women in every field, but there must be a reason that men’s sports are more exciting, and therefore more appealing to audiences. Biologically, there are some factors that would seem to contribute to the “excitement” theory.
Part of it seems to come down to testosterone. According to a second New York Times article, “Men, Women and Speed. 2 Words: Got Testosterone?” the hormone affects the amount of Type 2 muscle fibers (used to create speed and strength), the number of red blood cells produced (more red blood cells lead to more hemoglobin, which leads to the muscles’ ability to obtain oxygen while exercising), the amount of body fat a person has and the size and strength of the muscles and heart. In having more testosterone, men have the advantage over women because they have more Type 2 fibers, produce more red blood cells, have less body fat and larger muscles, including the heart.
When you hear people discussing sports the day after a game, what are they talking about? The seemingly impossible catch by Larry Fitzgerald, the throw down tackle by Ray Lewis, Kobe Bryant’s one-on-one battle that still resulted in a perfect shot and Lebron James blocking a shot into the tenth row of the stands. That’s what people want to see. That’s why they watch sports.
Unfortunately, in a lot of women’s sports, their bodies are just not made for these “insane” catches, throws and tackles. That’s not to say there aren’t women out there who are capable of dunking a basketball, it’s just that the majority are not. Maybe it’s like some people have been saying for years now: women simply need time to catch up because they’ve been discriminated against for so long. But maybe it has to do more with women’s bodies and men’s bodies and the fact that they are very different.
I don’t want these facts to discourage women from playing sports, because I definitely support female athletes. I just want to look into why men’s sports seem to get more coverage by both the media and fans. I think testosterone affects performance level, thus affecting the excitement and number of fans watching. In today’s world, where movie stunts are becoming crazier and crazier and the pressure is always on for that next explosive clip, men’s dunks in basketball and intense throws and tackles in football are going to attract attention.
Another factor is that many people, men and women, grow up watching men’s sports not women’s. I grew up rooting for football and basketball teams my dad liked, and even my mom only watched men’s sports. To this day I will not sit down to watch an entire women’s team compete in any sport unless it’s for the Olympics, and it could be because of how I was raised.
Growing up watching men’s sports might also mean we have higher standards when it comes to the action part of sports (dunking, catches, throws, etc.) and so when we watch women’s sports we become bored because they cannot, or do not, do the same things. Our vision is skewed towards men’s sports and their level of competition.
Unfortunately, our society is also obsessed with the idea that sex sells and women should be sexy all the time. So sports like volleyball (especially beach volleyball), gymnastics and tennis, where women either wear almost nothing or the clothing they wear is tight and short, get more attention that other sports and not necessarily for the right reasons.
Some of the most popular professional sports right now (football, baseball, basketball and hockey in terms of drawing television audiences) don’t even have counterpart women’s teams (with the exception of the WNBA). If people can’t watch you on television it’s hard to promote your team or sport and you won’t pull in advertisers or money. The U.S. women’s soccer team was doing well for a while, but Americans in general don’t watch much soccer (the low scores surely have something to do with this), so women are again at a disadvantage. Sponsors and advertisers mean money, which means more TV time, more exposure and more popularity.
It would be nice, of course, if everyone could appreciate both women’s and men’s sports for their unique qualities and celebrate female athletes as much as male athletes. But with the emphasis on everything being “bigger and better” I don’t see this happening anytime soon. If organizations and programs really want to promote women’s sports (the first step being Title IX) they need to extend the effort to watching women’s sports, not just playing them.
Only by growing up watching strong female athletes will young girls become accustomed to what women can do and hopefully continue watching as they grow older. This might be the only way to ensure a long lasting audience for women’s sports and guarantee that women’s sports continue to exist at a professional level.
Alisha Axsom is a journalism senior and Mustang Daily reporter.