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PARTVI The Feminine Image in Sports and Sports Media Part VI takes as its subjects the representation of women athletes in sports media and in the fictional world of feature films, as well as the embattled history of women journalists covering men’s sports. Media coverage matters because of the commercial nature of big-time sports. Women’s professional sports, especially embryonic professional soccer, basketball, softball, and volleyball leagues, face a conundrum. To gain popularity a sport must be visible, which in our society means gaining television and print media attention. But for networks to assume the cost of televising a sport, they must be confident that advertisers will pay to promote their products during telecasts. Marketers base their decisions on the perceived popularity of the particular sport or league as they try to gauge market size and potential profits and losses. This becomes a vicious circle for promoters of women’s sports: sports promoters need adequate media coverage to attract an audience for a sport, yet promoters cannot interest the media in covering a sport unless it is already deemed popular. Although the question of whether a sport receives media coverage is an important one, this section concentrates primarily on how women’s sports are covered by the various media. The section begins with Michael Messner, Margaret Carlisle Duncan, and Kerry Jensen’s key article on television coverage of women’s sports. “Separating the Men from the Girls” uncovers some of the ways in which television sportscasters consciously or unconsciously adopt different styles for the coverage of men’s and women’s events, perpetuating the gender bias that pervades women’s sports, as explored in Parts IV and V. A shorter item, the transcript of Richard C. Crepeau’s Sport and Society radio broadcast, discusses how NBC adopted a new style of television coverage for the 1996 Olympic Games in hopes of capturing a larger female audience, turning the Games into a sporty soap opera. Crepeau is not the only sports scholar to have made that connection. Movies are another site of cultural representation. Women’s sports films, of which there were comparatively few until the 1990s, have enjoyed a rise in 264 WOMEN AND SPORTS IN THE UNITED STATES popularity in the last fifteen years with films such as A League of their Own, Blue Crush, and Million Dollar Baby. Taken as a group, these presumably modern stories about female athletes and the manner in which they are filmed tell us much about the dominant cultural attitudes toward sportswomen. In an industry that typically spends a lot to make a lot, every film has to perform well at the box office and in the film rental industry to generate a profit. So, what sorts of stories “sell” when the protagonist is a woman athlete? In “The Women’s Sports Film as the New Melodrama,” Jean O’Reilly uncovers some disturbing messages embedded in films that purport to celebrate the modern sportswoman. Similarly, in reporting on sporting events, which actions or events do journalists consider newsworthy and which ones are ignored or dismissed? For instance, when a long-distance runner started menstruating and bled through her uniform in a televised race, should broadcasters have discussed or politely ignored the story? Lorie Conway argues for frank discussion of normal biological processes in “It’s Time to Tell the Bloody Truth.” If a female athlete’s husband or boyfriend sits in the stands, television cameras are likely to turn in his direction while announcers identify him and comment on his admirable support. The same can be said for male athletes’ wives and girlfriends. Yet there is seldom any visual or spoken acknowledgement of an athlete’s same-sex partner who sits in the stands, rooting just as ardently. Media coverage, which does much to influence the popularity of certain sports and sports figures, also dictates which sports-related stories are newsworthy, which are insignificant, and which are simply taboo. The absence of information and accurate representation can influence athletic experience, also. In the case of boxing, the media often treat women’s events as a spectacle, freak show, or sidelight to the main event rather than a legitimate activity . When matches are sold to the public as spectacle rather than as evenly matched competitions, boxers do not always receive adequate preparation. Moreover , no competent organizational body regulates the sport. In at least one case this dangerous situation led to a tragic outcome in which...

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