Girls Ruin Everything: An Analysis of the Framing of the Removal of Baseball and Softball from Olympic Competition

In 1996 women’s softball made its first ever appearance in the Summer Olympic Games. Not 10 years later, the International Olympic Committee announced softball and baseball would no longer be included in the Summer Olympic Games after 2008. Research is rich on the role mass media plays in shaping opinions and framing attitudes. Using framing theory as the theoretical basis, this study compares the coverage of the women’s softball and men’s baseball teams prior to, during, and following the news of the two sports being removed from Olympic competition. A consensus sample from four major media outlets (espn , Sports Illustrated, usa Today, and The New York Times) analyzed the amount of coverage devoted to each sport and the descriptors used to ascertain how each gender was framed in the face of being excluded from the Olympics. Notable findings include criticism of the US women for being too good, too dominant, and ruining the sport for the rest of the world, while the US men were criticized for not being dominant enough. Study findings do not support traditional research with respect to coverage amounts and descriptors with respect to gender.