Women's sport and the media

"As newsroom staffs shrink and eyeballs measure interest, women’s sports coverage is losing ground it once seemed to be gaining."

So, there you have it. We're not just imagining mainstream news outlets don't have room for women's sports,  The Nieman Foundation at Harvard and Marie Hardin from Penn State think so too.  She's written a thought-provoking article on the reasons why newspapers are cutting back on women's sports.

And she draws attention to Women Talk Sports (I'm a proud part of this) as a viable online alternative to the print medium when it comes to building athletes' profiles. Unfortunately she does also say their traffic is still less than say SBNation but it is also newer and building so over the next few years those numbers could change.

Personally I find it irritating that national women's teams can compete, represent their country and not even get two lines on a news bulletin or a few paragraphs in the paper the next day. A few weeks ago the Irish men and the women's rugby teams played on the same weekend; one team was barely mentioned.  Of course, every sport can't be covered all of the time. There is huge pressure on news, often so many things happening abroad and at home that you can imagine editors tearing their hair out trying to fit everything in.

But maybe this is what the online editions of papers should be for - all the news, plus the extra events which costs prevent them from running in print? 


You can read the full report on the Nieman Reports site at A shrinking sports beat:women's teams athletes