Gender Bias in Sports-Media Analytics

Critical media scholars have argued that popular sports media, as a cultural enabler, reinforces the traditional hegemonic masculinity associated with sport. This article, through a detailed content analysis of web-based espn Sport Science videos focused on sport-related performances of elite athletes, examined the extent to which they reinforce or diverge from the typical underrepresentation of women in sports media. The entire espn Sport Science online video library was analyzed. Differences in content and amount of time devoted to the analysis of male versus female athletes were the focus of the study. Results indicated that, as with other media coverage of male and female athletes, there was a bias toward men. Of the total time across all videos, 88% was devoted to analyses of male athletes. These data are consistent with previous research on the lack of coverage of women’s sports. However, contrary to typical media coverage of sports, the videos, regardless of the gender of the athlete, focused on their athleticism and had comparable biomechanical analyses.