My whole life I've been involved in sports and grew up following sports on SportsCenter. One thing I've noticed over the many years following sports is that women's professional leagues don't get the same reputation that its respective men's league receives. Its unfair to these women who have put in just as much work as the men to get to the position they are in and to not get any recognition. Basketball and soccer are two of the sports on this list. This blog will show the effects media plays on this topic and how some more light can be shown for women in these leagues.
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Blog Analysis
I have learned a lot while creating this blog on women in professional leagues. Women have come a long way to gain rights and to be treated as equals to men; sports is one area that women are continuing to gain respect and even popularity. Two main sports that I Have looked at over the semester were basketball and soccer. The reason I decided to speak about these two sports in particular is due to the fact that both these sports have a respective men’s and women’s league. While reading articles and looking online the main thing I’ve noticed for both sports is that the men receive much more attention then women. So my question was, “Well, why is this?”
When looking at women’s basketball we have the WNBA and right now there are currently only 12 teams, which is an increase from when they started back in 1997 with 8 teams. So we see that the league is expanding but for some reason the fan base is still pretty low. From my research the one things I seen and noticed all around about why this is, is because for one the WNBA was created as a counterpart to the men’s league, the NBA. At first it might have seemed good to do this because they figured the NBA fan base would also be part of the fan base for the women’s team in that city that a men’s team was in. They were wrong however, they didn’t realize that fans of the men’s leagues wouldn’t particularly want to watch women play because with all do respect they games do run slower and are less aggressive. I’m not saying this is bad but for fans that watch basketball to see aggressive play, those aren’t the fans you want to get a first glimpse of this new league. What should have been done was to create teams in the cities wear women’s collage basketball is big and growing so that fans of the college teams can continue to view there idols on the court.
Since this is how the league began there is nothing we can really do about that. But a solution can be to start to create teams where the college teams are. A big way that the WNBA can start to have more light shed on them would be to have the WNBA market the teams and players better. The fans at home do not know women’s basketball players names like they know NBA player’s names. The media needs to show these women at other events to show other sides to these women. This is how fans can develop bonds with these players leading to more fans at games.
Now when looking at women’s soccer, we currently have the NWSL, which just recently took place for the WPS. The NWSL currently has 8 teams and is trying to expand even more. As compared to men’s play it has be noted that you will notice that in women’s games you will see less faked and real injuries. In the men’s soccer the players are more explosive and the game is faster, but the game can sometimes be longer because of all the yellow cards and red cards. In the women’s game it is slower, less explosive but it is easier to follow, so as a fan you can see the sport in its purest form, which is one reason I enjoy women’s soccer. The NWSL was trying to expand this year in 2013 but was unsuccessful in doing so. The question they are addressing is how to we continue to add to the attendance. Without attendance they league doesn’t make money and then there will be no point in running the league in the first place. One positive to this is that the NWSL average around 4,300 fans this year, which was above what their expected value of 3,000 fans; this shows that people are taking an interest to the sport.
Something else that can be done for both these leagues would be to try and separate the schedules from the time the men are playing in order to get fans from the men’s league to try and watch the women play. This is a decent tactic because if you’re a fan of the sport you will have more time during the year to watch it. Also one thing we need to remember is that all these leagues both men and women are competing for airtime. So if the schedules are separate we can possibly see an increase in the airtime for the women’s sports because in general most of the United States rather watch men play.
Both these sports for women are continuing to expand and with more resources and better marketing these leagues can grow to a level just as high as the men’s leagues!
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5 Resources
1.http://equalizersoccer.com/tag/nwsl-attendance/
2.http://news.discovery.com/adventure/extreme-sports/womens-soccer-sports-110713.htm
3.http://www.soccerwire.com/news/exclusive-gulati-confirms-no-nwsl-expansion-for-2014/?loc=psw
4.http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-08-04/sports/sc-spt-0805-4corners-20130805_1_wnba-president-laurel-richie-brittney-griner-nba-commissioner-adam-silver
5. http://www.forbes.com/sites/alanaglass/2013/09/27/wnba-captures-fans-ends-regular-season-with-record-growth/
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5 Fun Facts
1. The WNBA originated with 8 teams in 1997, and through a sequence of expansions, contractions, and relocations currently consists of 12 teams. There have been a total of 18 franchises in WNBA history
2.The WNBA averaged 7,457 fans in 2012, an all-time low.
3.NBA teams have drafted women players before. In 1969, the San Francisco Warriors selected a high school student, Denise Long, in the 13th round; Long had averaged a cool 69.6 points per game in her senior year. Then-NBA commissioner Walter Kennedy voided the pick, since the NBA did not allow high school players to be drafted at the time (he also deemed it a pure publicity stunt). In 1977, the New Orleans Jazz picked Lusia Harris, from Delta State, in the seventh round. But she did not try out; it turned out that Harris was pregnant at the time.
4. The first recorded Association Football match between two women's teams took place in Scotland in 1888. It has since endured derision and even official bans, but women's soccer has maintained a rich and fascinating history.
5.The NWSL averaged 4,271 fans in the 2013 season which was above the expected average of 3,000 fans.
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A large part of the reason for the WNBA’s anonymity is the fact that it is so hopelessly overshadowed by the behemoths of the industry. The NBA, MLB and NFL all produce significantly better products than the WNBA. With a season that overlaps each of these professional sports, women’s basketball does not stand a chance. They are all competing for media attention and airtime, and the boys always win.
http://www.thehoya.com/sports/wnba-fails-to-thrill-fans-1.2928025#.Uqi2ipSgl8w
This is a valid point. The WNBA needs to find a way to show light among their players and one way to do that would be by separating the WNBA season from the same time the NBA season in on.
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The Women's Sports Foundation is non-profit that advances the lives of women and girls through sports and physical activity.
interesting read, some of the myths that are talked about in this people think are true.
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This is great because it shows that even though they are Women they still play just as hard as the men and have the same or maybe even more determination when playing the sport
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Some argue women's soccer is a purer form of the sport, with fewer faked injuries, more scoring and a smoother, slower pace.
"After the first women's World Cup in 1991, referees who were accustomed to the men's game reported being more fatigued after reffing women's games," said Anson Dorrance
This is interesting...makes you wonder if women play more aggressive than men. I feel women's games are more interesting to watch then men's at certain times
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This is more information on women soccer and what they are about
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Group Introduction
Our group presentation and research analyses the role and effect of women in different sports and in the world of fitness.
The presence of women in sports is not as influential as men’s presence. Many intense sports involve physical contact such as football, hockey, rugby etc. There are not any professional leagues of these sports for women.
Even though there are professional teams for women such as the WNBA and NWSL, the media focuses more on men’s professional sports, not giving much attention and exposure to the women leagues. The factors and reasons why this is the case and what can be done to shine more light on these women professional teams.
In the past few years, the presence of female athletes in sports has increased rapidly. Tennis is a sport where women have shown a strong increasing presence, and popularity, compared to men. This sport is paving a path in increasing the popularity and presence of professional women athletes in sports.
Men have primarily dominated the gym with excessive weight training and professional appearances. However, women’s figure in fitness has taken a bigprogressive leap over the past few decades. Women are not only attending the gym more often but also making professional careers. Women presence in the gym has brought much attention to controversial topics over drug use, media exposure and sexual objects
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Creative Story
Sometimes it is hard to believe all the things I have been through in the 20 years I’ve been alive on this planet. My name is Samantha Wright and I am currently attending University at Albany, home of the Great Dane, majoring in Accounting with a business minor. I am now currently in my junior year and it has been some ride these past few years living away from home. I was born and raised in Manhattan, New York so I guess you can call me a city girl.
Growing up I had some very close friends and we have tons of stories about how weird people…mostly men can be towards us. It started in middle school always having boys tease us and talk about how they want to kiss this girl and do this to this girl; honestly it just gets annoying having to deal with perverted boys in school but what can you do right…that is how young boys are right? It just got worse heading into high school. I started to see my friends and other girl classmate’s change in way that appealed to the boys in our school. My friends all started to wear tighter clothes and expose their body a little bit more than usual. I’m not saying I didn’t like boys in high school but I was trying to keep focused because I was thinking about my future, especially having to be a woman in this world that has rules based on the benefit of the white man.
After I decided to attend University at Albany for college I realized that I needed to be careful because this would be my first time away from home for a long period of time. The first thing I noticed while being at the campus is that no matter where I went to I always had to deal with the fact that there was some guy staring at me; whether it be in the library, the cafeteria or walking back to my dorm. I mean, I did get this while living in the city but not as much because I was younger. This bothered me a bit because even though a part of me is like, “Oh, whatever boys are going to be boys”, deep down I felt that I needed to represent myself differently because now I know that I’m being watched almost constantly throughout the day. Making all the new friends I did in my accounting classes and also while pledging DPhiE (Delta Phi Epsilon), I started to see how a lot of classmates and the older sister’s dressed and represented themselves at parties to help guys like them more and I started to dress the same way. So even though at this point I started to dress a little different to not just get attention but to reassure myself that I look like a girl who is sexy and desirable by men.
Even though I was dressing a bit different then normal, I was still fully focused on getting my career started. Some of these accounting classes were just so stressful that it just made me want to let go and relax a bit and this was my big mistake. I ended up getting real drunk at this party the last week of February in my Spring 2011 semester and I hooked up with this boy in TKE (Tau Kappa Epsilon) and I ended up sleeping with him that night in his room. I woke up with full regret; I knew I had done something terribly wrong.
At first I wasn’t thinking too much of it but then after about a week and a half I started to get dizzy and I had faint cramping. I searched my symptoms and found out that I can possibly be pregnant. I was scared shit! First thing in my head was that my father and mom were going to kill me. While looking online I learned abut Planned Parenthood and was able to find a place to help assist with getting an abortion. I came to the conclusion to get an abortion because for one I know I don’t want to marry the kid I slept with because it was just a drunken mistake, and two I don’t want to make my life more difficult by having to deal with a child and classes. The place I went to was Albany Health Center and luckily it was 5 minutes by car and about 40 minutes walking, I decided to call a cab after my classes that week on a Friday to go to the health center.
At the health center I spoke to a doctor who gave me all the options for an abortion, which included an abortion pill, in-clinic abortion and sedation options. She asked me why I wanted one and I told her how I felt about the whole situation and that I made a huge mistake and my family doesn’t deserve to get this news from me especially since they are helping pay for college so that I can get a degree to help push-start my career. She asked me how the “father” felt about me getting the abortion and I told her that he is okay with it even though I didn’t even think to ask him how he felt about it. At this point I just want things to be back to normal so I figured I deal with that at a later time. Since I was over 18 at the time I was able to get this done with just my own consent; I agreed to try the pill and if this didn’t work to go for the in-clinic abortion. I went back to the Health Center about a week later because my bleeding went from light to heavy and I still had some cramps on my lower back. The doctor informed me that the pill was a success and that I was no longer pregnant. She informed me that the bleeding will be at a minimal and that the cramping would subside.
After about a month I felt it was time to tell the boy what happened. When I found him, I let him know that I was pregnant and his face was in shock like he couldn’t believe it but then I said I got an abortion. He told me “thank god” and was in such relief. He was nice about it however because he asked me if I was okay and if there is anything he could do, I told him thank you but you did enough and smiled to make it seem less awkward. I guess we left off on a good note. My friends were also worried about me because they noticed I was missing some days when I was at the health center. I let them know and they comforted me, which made me feel much better. I also confessed to my mom and asked her to please not tell dad because I didn’t want him to worry or flip out, my mother is such an amazing person to understand me and I let her know that this is a mistake that will never happen again.
I’m not saying that getting an abortion is something that is necessarily a good thing but that for my situation it has helped me keep on the right track. From this experience I have learned that I need to stay more focused on the big picture and that the right guy will come with time, for now I just need to keep up with my work. I realized that my best shot at having a nice job and having a successful career that last long would be to wait to have a child until my life is more stable and my finances are good. My parents are looking out for my best interest and I just need to make sure I pay attention to the tips they give me. It would have been unfair to my baby if I had it because I am not in the right place to raise a child to have a comfortable life. I want my child to be able to grow up with the stability that I had growing up with my parents. Yes, life is precious but what is life if you aren’t given the appropriate beginning.
My name is Samantha Wright and thanks for listening to my story… I hope people read this and can learn from my mistake to help them make better decisions.
Make smart decisions because you only live once and in a moment everything can change.
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An open letter to WNBA player Olympia Scott, in response to her post about unfair comparisons between the WNBA and NBA
What he explains about marketing techniques makes complete sense. The WNBA needs to fix their techniques in order to get the organization out there among women college hoops and their fan base.
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ESPN needs to make the time to air important games for the WNBA, it isn't fair to the players and fans.
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When I zapped into the Olympics opening ceremony on Saturday, I had the doubtful pleasure to see the German sportspeople entering the stadium in ridiculously
Definitely a good topic to converse on. I feel in some situations women can play sports with men like in billiards or darts but for the most part men tend to be more physical and this can result in more injuries to women or even women being in the same team as a guy can lead to distraction for the men. It would be cool to create a league in some sports just to see how it plays out. Maybe it would be interesting and people might enjoy it.
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My Thoughts: Talks of a Houston NWSL Team
Recently, there has been a lot of news on Houston trying to push for an NWSL team, mostly looking into trying to get in for the 2014 season instead of waiting until 2015. As a proud Houstonian and WoSo lover/supporter, here are my thoughts on it…
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And this is why there should be more women team's in the NWSL
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This guy is making a joke by attacking the fact that WNBA doesn't even have a video game because of the lack of fans. He is also attacking the stereotype that women belong in the kitchen. Images like this do not help in the cause of helping the WNBA get more light on them.
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Notice how the crowd is empty, this doesn't help with the WNBA's look. There has to be a way to get more fans to these games.
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