Branded by Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady (review)

In an interview that previews Branded, codirector Heidi Ewing states, “Branding is all about controlling one’s image, and what we found making this film is, no matter what sport the women play, branding themselves and creating a persona has become more and more important, especially in the Internet age.” Indeed, despite the exponential increase in participation numbers, the emergence of professional women’s leagues, and the international success of national women’s teams, female athletes in the United States receive limited media exposure and struggle to secure sponsorship deals.

Branded, one of the films in ESPN’s Nine for IX—a series that highlights women’s status in sport forty years after Title IX—focuses on sports marketing. Specifically, the film explores how female athletes negotiate their images against the sport industry’s masculinist values. By exploring the business decisions behind the marketing strategies of several prominent female athletes including Chris Evert, Mary Lou Retton, Anna Kournikova, Gabrielle Reese, and Danica Patrick, the film exposes the detrimental ways in which the sport industry’s business rationale has continued to emphasize sex appeal over athleticism. Although the film does not offer solutions to the problem, it provides insight into the complex structural, cultural, and economic barriers female athletes face en route to fame and success.

The film begins with the historical context of the 1970s—a common point of entry for the Nine for IX films—when Billie Jean King fought for sponsorship and equal prize money in tennis. Building upon that pivotal moment, the directors identify female athletes who evoked a strong response from the sport-business industry and thereby shifted (though did not necessarily improve) the dialogue around women’s sports. Ewing and Rachel Grady, who also directed Women in War and Women in Comedy for PBS’s 2014 series Makers: Women Who Make America, bring their experience of documenting the nuances and intricacies of women’s status in society to this film as well. Interviews with sports marketers, sports agents, sports journalists, and league administrators explain the business rationale that drives problematically gendered marketing efforts, yet these perspectives remain secondary to those of female athletes, who share their decision-making process with the viewers. Thus, female athletes’ agency remains at the forefront of the narrative.

The film is timely in relation to the conversation in sport studies regarding the promotional efforts surrounding women’s sports. Scholars have begun to debunk the myth that the sexual objectification of women increases the popularity of women’s sports, instead arguing that this strategy merely sells sex. Further, scholars have found that female athletes would prefer to appear in athletic rather than sexualized poses, thus disparaging the myth that female athletes simply choose to appear in soft-porn settings. Consistent with this body of research, Branded questions both the logic and the outcome of these marketing strategies and ultimately advocates for a more respectful treatment of female athletes.

Similar to other Nine for IX films, Branded could provide more critical analysis of the intersecting forces of oppression. Omitting any discussion of race and sexuality is a glaring gap in the film. The interviewees in Branded comprehensively fail to recognize and deconstruct the extent to which heteronormativity and whiteness dominate constructions of beauty, sex appeal, and attractiveness. For instance, the segment on the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) lends itself to a critical analysis of homophobia and antiblack misogyny, but the interviewees merely debate whether the league should require women to wear shorter shorts. This discussion of a seemingly banal topic could have led to a more robust analysis of why women’s self-presentation and uniforms must adhere to social expectations of white heterofemininity. Sponsorship deals and endorsements virtually altogether bypass queer women and women of color, which perpetuates systems of social inequality in the United States.

That said, Branded is well suited for discussions in sports marketing, advertising, public relations, sport sociology, and gender studies. By asking “What does a woman athlete need to do now to make money and get noticed?” the...