Women and Men in the Press Box:

The Price of Progress

Ellen J. Staurowsky, Ed.D.

Associate Professor and Coordinator,
Sport Communication Program
Ithaca College, Ithaca, NY 14850
607-274-1730 (office)
607-27-471943 (fax)
staurows@ithaca.edu
 Abstract

This essay examines the concept of “progress” within the gender politics of sport media. On

one hand, it is the best of times for women in sport media. More women than ever before are

writing about sports and covering sports on television and radio. Simultaneously, it is the worst

of times, with the sexual objectification of women athletes and women sportscasters occurring at

unprecedented levels. Mixed messages about the place and role of women in sport media, what

sportscaster Bob Costas refers to as “cross-currents”, are generated at a constant pace. The

dilemma of defining progress within those cross-currents is considered along with the price

exacted from women for the advancements that have been achieved in a masculinist sport media

enterprise that has been reluctant to welcome women fully as equal partners into its ranks.

Introduction
In the fall of 2000, on a most beautiful Saturday in central New York with the air crisp all

around, the crystalline blue sky above Cayuga Lake extending to the great beyond, and the

athletic fields at Ithaca College teeming with activity, the effects of what some would consider a

societal revolution were coming to fruition. Interestingly, the moment passed with hardly

anyone noticing. And what, pray tell, was this seemingly momentous non-moment?

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 Women had executed an ever so quiet takeover of sports media on the campus and nary a

sound was heard to disturb the calm of it. In the sports section of the school newspaper, the

bylines of Kim Sebastiao, Abby Funk, and Jennifer Beekman appeared alongside their respective

articles about the women’s soccer, field hockey, and tennis teams. During the pre-game football

radio broadcast, Amanda Grossman was interviewing a defensive lineman about the upcoming

game that afternoon while Pam Warner readied herself in the press box at Butterfield Stadium to

record statistics. It was the voice of Melissa Baron who introduced the starting line-ups, provided

the play-by-play, and kept the audience informed about down yardage. And on the field,

shooting footage for the next day’s airing of the college’s weekly sports show, was Emily

Obletz. Although women have played a considerable role in sport media on the campus in years

past, the magnitude of their presence behind the scenes, on air, in print, and in front of the

camera that day was a rare event. It was a good day for women in sport media on the South Hill.

The air was filled with multiple women’s voices talking sports as naturally as if they had been

born to it, which of course, they had been. Importantly, they were also intently honing their craft

in anticipation of working in sport media careers after graduation.1

This local example of the quiet emergence of women in sport media may represent a welcome

sign of changing times and is not a wholly unusual occurrence. In commenting on the changes

that are happening in sport media, N.F.L. reporter and national anchor for Fox Sports, Jeanne

Zelasko observed, “It’s changed so much that at one of the games I did last year, I walked into

the press box and it was like ‘all women, all the time’” (Century, 2000). Similarly, New York

Daily News sports columnist Lisa Olson noted “It’s amazing how many women you see at the

clubhouse at Yankee Stadium, holding cameras and microphones and writing stories”

(McNamara, 2000).

When considered through the lens of history, one is left with the difficult task of

interpreting what these moments really mean. What awaits the young women of Ithaca College,

and others like them around the country, who grew up in the age of GRRL power and dream of

careers in sport media? Has there been substantial progress in the sport media workplace? In

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effect, is the coast clear? Is it becoming more gender balanced, more accustomed to counting

women among its ranks?

In a Dickensian sense, an overview of gender politics in sport media reveals it is both the best

of times and the worst of times for women in the industry. There can be no doubt that there is a

female presence in what scholar Varda Burstyn (1999) refers to as the sports-media complex.2

At the same time, mixed messages about the place and role of women in that complex, what

sportscaster Bob Costas (2001) has called “cross-currents”, are generated at a constant pace. The

remainder of this essay will address the dilemma of defining progress within those cross-currents

and the price exacted for the progress women have made by a reluctant masculinist sport-media

enterprise.

The Dilemma of Defining Progress

With the growing acceptance of women in sport throughout American society, the

development and promotion of women’s professional leagues, the cultivation of women’s sports

media markets, and the increasing attention devoted to women’s sports, it is no surprise that the

overall picture of women in sport media is one of growth as well. Organizations formed by

women practitioners with the express purpose of advancing the interests of women in the sport

media workforce have generated considerable attention in a short period of time. Between 1994

and 2000, the most established of these, the Association of Women in Sport Media (AWSM),

more than doubled its membership from 400 to 850 (Cramer, 1994; AWSM Membership

Directory, 2000). Women in Sports and Events (WISE), with a membership of 504, has

expanded from an organization based solely in New York City to include chapters in Boston,

Charlotte, Detroit, and Washington D.C.(personal correspondence with WISE Membership

Chair, Barrie Krefetz, June 20, 2001). Within months of forming Female Athletic Media

Executives (FAME) in the summer of 2000, over 200 women signed up as members (CoSIDA

Digest, April, 2001).

Although the number of women in the industry has been on the rise, the percentage of women

in the total workforce remains relatively small. Among sports information practitioners at the

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college and university level, researchers Vivian Acosta and Linda Carpenter (2000) reported that

between the academic years 1998 through 1999, the percentage of women occupying full time

positions actually dropped from 14.2% to 9.5%. Describing the climate for women in sports

information as one in which “only the strong survive”, Neupauer (1998) pointed out that women

comprised 22% of the workforce, a representation that sharply contrasts with the 54%of women

nationally who work in other areas of public relations.

The position of women in sports television seems rather tenuous as well. Based on inside

industry sources, Sally Jenkins estimated in 1991 that fewer than 50 of the sportscasters at 630

network affiliate stations around the country were women. Almost a decade later, in September

of 2000, Rudy Martzke of USA Today reported that of the known 416 sportscasters working in

national network and cable television, 335 were male (80%) and 81 female (20%). Notably,

ESPN did not release data on their male sportscasters when USA Today requested the

information. Thus, the reported percentages are probably more favorable to females than they

would be if ESPN had responded to the request.3For a nice overview regarding the lack of

progress in the broadcast booth see Eicher, D. (2000, November). No room in the booth: Female

reporters are making headway but still haven’t broken all the way through the television’s most

male broadcast club. The Denver Post, D-10. Another useful article is Martzke, R. (2000,

September 7). Aiming for more air time: Debate picks upon women’s place in sportscasting.

USA Today, p. 1C.

Perceptions of what constitutes progress in an industry where men outnumber women at a

ratio of roughly 8 to 1 appears to vary considerably from one practitioner to the other. For some

women, there is a perception that the difficult work of breaking through the gender barrier is a

thing of the past. Lynn DeBruin, who covers the Broncos for the Rocky Mountain News, has

remarked, “Is that even an issue anymore?” (Roberts, 1999). The very fact that there are women

in sport media who consider that there is no longer a need to fight for equality because women

are accepted might be read as a long-awaited sign of substantive progress.

However, DeBruin appears to be one of the few women who harbors this particular

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perspective. At an anecdotal and statistical level, gender isn’t just “an issue”, it appears to be

“the issue”. In the Denver market, where DeBruin works, “only four females have served as

full-time sports staffers for major Denver outlets” during the sixteen years between 1983 and

1999 (Roberts, 1999). Similarly, Kristie Eckert, a sportswriter for the New York Daily News

observed about being one of three women out of 25 to 30 writers on staff,

“I’m used to it, I’ve never been in a situation where it’s any different.
I’m always a minority. I wouldn’t say it’s hard, but it’s not easy either.
They are very good about assignments, in terms of fairness, who gets what.
It is weird being a woman sportswriter, most days I forget I am a woman.

The people I cover and occasionally the people at work remind me.” (O’Reilly, 1999).

This sense of isolation, being in the minority, or perhaps being the only one is borne out in the

literature. Sportswriter Vicki Michaelis (2001) observed that respect continues to be difficult to

gain and despite the best efforts of women and their male allies to achieve equity, “the rules are

not the same for a woman covering a sports beat as they are for a man” (p. 1). Lynn Zinser,

sports columnist at the Colorado Springs Gazette has remarked that “Inside is the hardest place

to make progress. Many editors are part of an old boys network, and they feel there’s little risk

in hiring a man to fill a sports position” (Roberts, 2000).

Thus, within a male-dominated culture, the very nature of progress is problematic. A flavor

for the contested terrain under dispute and the ground that is grudgingly and, at times,

gracelessly given up by members of the male sport media power base when women assert their

voice is found in the reflections of Johnette Howard, a Newsday sports columnist. In an

interview about the status of women in sport media, Howard observed “I used to get mail saying

‘You’re a dumb broad and you don’t know anything about sports.’ Now they just say, ‘You’re a

dumb broad.’ I’d say that’s progress.” (McNamara, 2000).

As veteran sports journalist, Tracy Dodds (2000) pointed out in her reflections on the subject

in the American Editor, progress has been “uneven”, a process of fits, starts, and reversals.

Whereas there are some islands of support, such as the sports staff at the Cleveland Plain Dealer,

where a commitment has been made to support women at all levels, from beat reporter through

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sports editor, she also acknowledges that “It is still troubling, though, to see that when it comes

to sports editors, sports columnists and women on key pro beats, we can still name them.”

If progress is defined narrowly, as Lynn DeBruin does, as the hiring of women into a

workforce that would have otherwise excluded them on the basis of their sex alone, then women

being in the industry is an obvious marker that progress has been made. If, however, progress in

the sport media industry is measured on the basis of the degree to which the male insiders accept

and welcome women into its ranks, then the industry has a way to go.

Because the industry does not maintain reliable employment statistics, it is difficult to know

what the attrition rate is among women who successfully enter the profession. Tracy Dodds has

noted that as some portion of women have remained in the sports journalism profession since the

1970s, they have encountered what might be considered waves of adversity. First, they faced the

challenge of gaining access to a profession largely disinclined to hire women. Once hired,

harassment and isolation followed. If one hung around long enough, modest career advancement

was sometimes greeted with a chilly reception by male colleagues. And now, what women who

have been around for a while appreciate, is that “we have begun to lose talented, experienced

women. Some because they matured beyond taking satisfaction in the relentless hostile battle,

some because they came to realize that they could make more money for many fewer hours and

much less flak in another field and some because they wanted families” (Dodds, 2000).

The loss of experienced women in sport media is a recurrent theme. Claire Smith (1999,

2000), highly regarded sportswriter for the Philadelphia Inquirer and recipient of the AWSM

Pioneer Award in 2000, has written several articles about the challenges of finding balance

between professional and personal life as a female sportswriter. Notably, the loss of women in

the field of college and university sports information for those same reasons created the primary

impetus for the formation of the F.A.M.E. organization (personal conversation with Sue

Cornelius Edson, founding member of F.A.M.E. and associate director of athletic

communications at Syracuse University, August, 2000).

Although attacks on professional and personal credibility are often perceived to be the more

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serious challenges encountered by women working in sport media jobs, the plain fact of the

matter is that the systemic value structure operating within the sport media industry is simply

hostile to women in general. Thus, difficulties in sustaining a personal relationship and creating

the groundwork for a life outside of the profession is not a problem shared identically for both

men and women.

Beyond considering which wave of adversity one might wish to tackle in an attempt to

remove it as an impediment to progress, it is my sense that a more important obstacle to

accurately measuring, and then achieving, progress for women in sport media careers is the

generalized confusion that exists between the concepts of job access versus systemic progress.

Access, by itself, does not guarantee that progress will occur. A masculinist system, if nothing

else, is invested in maintaining the primacy of male experience while limiting, constraining,

and/or restraining the role of women within it. A sexist system that favors males has the capacity

to function and flourish even when it is no longer exclusionary, especially if that system

intersects and connects with other systems of domination (i.e., homophobia, racism, ageism,

nationalism, capitalism).

Whereas the record would suggest that women have gained somewhat greater access to

careers in sport media during the past three decades, it remains to be seen if progress has

occurred. One way to measure genuine progress is to consider the question of whether the sport

media culture, at an ideological level, has ventured far from its roots in a male supremacist view

of the world to embrace a concept of men and women as fundamentally equal. Because of its

historical significance, an examination of the ways in which women have been banned and/or

discouraged from working in sport media provides some insight in this regard.

Sport Culture and the Many Forms of Female Banishment

When we think about the practice of banning women from athletic venues, we ordinarily think

of the struggles that have occurred surrounding women’s access to men’s locker rooms.

However, the banishment of women from men’s sport culture has had a storied and studied

history that spans not just decades but centuries. From spectacular stories about women being

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thrown off cliffs in efforts to deter them from watching male athletes compete in ancient Greece

to Albert Spaulding in the early 1900s issuing a ban on women playing baseball, part of men’s

history in sport is their quest to perfect the art of female exclusion.

In the relatively recent past, male sports publicists fashioned policies restricting the presence

of women in press boxes which were then published in media guides. In 1936, Phil Pack, the

first full-time publicist at the University of Michigan, wrote:

“Women will not, under any circumstances, be admitted to the press
box unless they present written authority from their editors in advance
and this letter must state that they are to cover the game and use a wire for
this purpose. Women feature writers, etc., not using wires will not be
permitted. The press box management asks that women correspondents

be not sent unless necessary.”(Marrs, 1998, p. 172).

Scholar Pamela Creedon(1993) has likened the phenomenon of men banning women from the

press box to that of a “war” between men and women. The distinguished Beth Hightower, who

started her career as a sportswriter in the 1930s, wrote about rules prohibiting her from working

in the press box in one of the first pieces she published in The Sporting News in 1942 (Creedon,

1993). The “Dean of Women Sportswriters”, Mary Garber has written about other permutations

on the theme of banning women, including being barred from membership in the Southern

Conference Sportswriters Association and the Atlantic Coast Conference Sportswriters

Association in the 1940s (Garber, 1994).

At the turn of the twenty first century, it can be claimed that women are no longer banned

from the press box and writers associations but the deep undercurrent of female exclusion has

taken on new forms. Although in some settings the press box is simply a place for men and

women to work, the culture of the press box and the conduct of its male inhabitants in some

areas of the country has been as effective as any formal ban in discouraging women from

working there. In interviews that I’ve conducted with college-age women completing work

experiences in the industry, many of them encounter significant hostility from their male

colleagues. Two young women working for minor league baseball clubs described their

reception in all male press boxes as deeply troubling. One simply endured but noted that there

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was not a home game that went by when she was not the target of jokes and innuendo.

Determined to stay the course, she remained, no matter how difficult it got. Interestingly

enough, she is not working in the sports industry today but has chosen to work in corporate

media relations instead. Thus, a climate and culture that drives women away is, in effect, a ban

wrapped in an inclusionary facade.

Another young woman related this story:

“I was the only female in the press box all summer long and it was a drag.
I remember one night I was in absolute tears from just being repeatedly
picked on...After that, my boss came in and said they would find another
job for me to do at the ballpark during the games and I wouldn’t have

to be in the press box anymore.” (Staurowsky & DiManno, 2001, under review).

The highly publicized New England Patriots locker room incident involving Lisa Olson in the

1990s is a haunting example of just how unrelenting and bruising the forces operating within a

male hegemonic system can be. After being sexually harassed by three Patriot football players

and subjected to multiple indignities, Olson was not only driven from the press box but for a time

driven from the country, going to Australia, representing “the point on the map that was the

farthest away” (Fitzgerald, 1997). And while upon her return, several publications followed up

with stories (Fitzgerald, 1997; Sharp & Zuk, 1997), the piece in Playboy by Blaire Fischer

(2000) is particularly interesting because it fails to acknowledge Playboy’s own role in

precipitating Olson’s flight from the United States. At the time of the incident, Playboy’s

reaction to the sexual harassment of Lisa Olson was to offer her a pictorial layout in the

magazine, as if sexual objectification were an appropriate response to sexual violence (Kane &

Disch, 1993).

The banning of yesteryear has been replaced, not only with outright and direct targeting of

women but through ignoring them or even worse, making fun of them. In a piece entitled

“Gridiron Wench: Intrepid Girl Reporter”, Alyssa Lulie (1998), an undergraduate sportswriter

with The California Aggie wrote about the difficulty she had being recognized as a woman

writing about sports. She wondered why, while displaying press credentials, busily scribbling in

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her reporter’s notebook, and standing in the press box, men seemed unable to recognize the fact

that she was actually a reporter. She wondered why football coaches wouldn’t answer her

questions, leaving her with the distinct impression that they believed that it would be a waste of

their time to speak with her because they assumed she didn’t know what a blitz, or an option, or

a shotgun was. Intrepid she was but also frustrated and second guessing herself, questioning

whether her voice was too high, whether the reception she received was due to her slight build or

the clothes she wore (khaki pants and sports shirt). From this example, exclusion can take the

form of dismissal. Men might not antagonize, they just mock instead.

About the effects of these assaults on personal credibility, Olympian Cammi Granato who is

the only female former hockey player to attempt a career in the broadcast booth to date, working

for the Los Angeles Kings, observed “You never know if it’s an attack on you personally or if

it’s an attack on you as a woman” (Morris, 1998). It’s abundantly clear that tests are not

reserved only for the newcomers in the industry. ESPN producer Justine Gubar was setup by a

male reporter when he intentionally directed her to the men’s showers after she asked where the

exit door in an NBA locker room was (McNamara, 2000).

As a collective, these stories bear a remarkable resemblance in tone and tenor to the fictional

narrative of a female sportswriter’s experience as written by former sportswriter, now scholar,

Toni Bruce (2000). In a narrative about Samantha, a female reporter, male athletes and male

members of the media alike conspire to create an uncomfortable situation for her in the locker

room, taunting her, making lewd comments, and cautioning against “any feminist crap”.

Samantha eventually escapes to her car where

“it takes 15 minutes for the shaking to stop before I can start the engine
to head back to the office. Never let the bastards see you cry, my

father always told me. And I didn’t. Not this time” (p. 74).

Sexism and the Sport-Media Complex

Perhaps no incident better illustrates the fact that the press box, and the entire sport-media

complex, remains a battle ground for men and women than the one involving two male reporters

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arguably “working” in a Major League Baseball press box who persisted in surfing porn sites on

the internet despite the request of a female coworker to cease the activity (McNamara, 2000).

Well-respected author Mariah Burton Nelson (1994) was right when she observed that “the

stronger women get, the more men love football”. However, it is also telling that the stronger

women get, the more engaged the sport industry has become in blurring the lines between mild

forms of sexual titillation through the glamorization of cheerleaders and the inclusion of women

in sports broadcasts as what might be called “eye candy”, to the more sexually violent forms of

hard-core pornography. Whereas the connection between college football and Playboy dates

back to the mid-1950s, the production of the Swimsuit Edition by Sports Illustrated to the 1960s,

and the strategic marketing of professional wrestling using soft-core porn during the 1990s, the

year 2000 marked the transformation of women sportscasters into outright sex objects when

Playboy conducted it’s “sexiest sportscaster” poll on the internet.4 Two items related to these

trends are of interest. First, www.cnnsi.com elevates the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition to

the status of an “event” alongside of such historic events as Wimbledon and the Major League

Baseball All-Star Game. Second, some of the women featured in the Playboy poll claim that

they were misled about what the magazine intended, were never asked, and would not have

given their consent had they known the purpose of the request (Harvego, 2001).

In their work on men and masculinity in sport, scholars Don Sabo and Michael Messner

(1994) have argued that a feminist analysis of sport allows for a study of the forces that work

simultaneously to establish a male patriarchy that separates “men from boys” and “men from

girls”. Sabo and Messner further hypothesize that this separation results in men becoming

emotionally and physically distanced from other men, less able to engage in intimate, meaningful

relationships with women, and essentially more inclined to exploit the weak, whether they be

men or women. As part of that process, the sport media’s production of images that trivialize

women athletes and women in the industry insures that “male hegemony remains stable in the

face of pressure to change” (Sabo & Messner, 2001, p. 30). As if to confirm this point, president

of ASWM Leba Hertz (2001) noted in an open letter to Playboy publisher, Hugh Hefner about

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the “Sexiest Sportscaster” poll, “I’m writing to thank you for reminding me that women have not

outgrown being fluffy targets for our male brethren” (p. 1).

In her nuanced work on the meanings of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition in particular,

sociologist Laurel Davis (1997) argues that multiple systems of domination (homophobia,

racism, ageism) along with sexism create forces that produce the appeal of the publication

primarily to a male audience, the willingness of women to participate in the production of the

publication, and the corporate interest the publisher has in realizing a profit from it. The lines

drawn here also serve to create another layer of division, this time pitting women against women

in a manner Naomi Wolf (1992) conceptualizes as the “ugly feminist” versus “the beauty icon.”

It is notable that since the enormous commercial success of the 1996 Olympics, known as the

“Games of the Woman”, the launch of the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA)

has been the most successful experiment in women’s professional basketball in the United States

to date. The stunning impact the U. S. Women’s Soccer team had on the public consciousness

when they won the Women’s World Cup gold medal in 1999 was equally unparalleled in the

annals of sport in this country. However, during the same five year window of time there has

also been a meteoric rise in the depiction of women athletes and sportscasters as sex objects.

While Mia Hamm and Venus Williams have received endorsement deals that outpaced

anything previously negotiated by female professional athletes, shows like FOX NFL Sunday

have been busy creating what HBO Real Sports host Bryant Gumbel and reporter Bernard

Goldberg (2000) describe as a free wheeling “frat house atmosphere” that has the look and feel

of a “testosterone festival”. Former Cincinnati Bengal turned FOX football analyst, Chris

Collinsworth characterizes the show as a “fun place” where men can escape and hide from the

world of “feminists” and “political correctness.” The role of Jillian Barberi, the one woman on

the show is described by Goldberg this way:

“Officially she’s the pre-game show’s weather person. Unofficially
she’s the pre-game show magnet who draws male eyeballs to the

tv set.”

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The “weather person” device in this case is an admittedly lame attempt on the part of the

producers to thinly disguise the fact that Ms. Barberi is quite obviously there not as a female who

knows anything about professional football but as a sex object alone. In combination, FOX

delivers for its mostly male audience a heady brew of male sports talk and banter with a potent

sex kitten chaser.

At one level, the accommodation and presentation of an array of female images can be

interpreted as a signal that there has been a positive shift in the gender order. Some women, like

Jeannie Buss, vice-president of the two-time NBA Championship Los Angeles Lakers, former

professional volleyball player Gabriella Reece, and decorated Olympian, model, and former XFL

sideline reporter Dara Torres, have argued that posing in Playboy and in Sports Illustrated has

been an empowering experience for them, and one that can be regarded by women as an act of

liberation (Costas, 2001; Lidz, 1998; Telander, 2000).5

Although at an individual level this may in fact be the case, and there is a strong argument for

encouraging an awareness of healthy female sexuality that emanates from empowerment rather

than subservience, and frankly healthy female sexuality that exists simply because women are

sexual human beings, nevertheless it seems profoundly naive to assert, given the degree to which

women are in the minority in sport and the degree to which men have failed to take women

seriously in sport up to this point in time, that gestures such as these are viewed by a significant

portion of men as anything other than acquiescence to a heterosexual male power base.

The creators of sports television themselves acknowledge that they are fostering a “frat

house” atmosphere.6 Where in there, in a male haven where women are not to be taken
seriously, would taking your clothes off for the sexual gratification of men be perceived as a

statement of female empowerment? It remains the case that a sex object is still a sex object, and

by definition is not going to be taken seriously. Lusted after, maybe; afforded attention,

possibly; paid handsomely, perhaps. But taken seriously in sport? I think not.

The juxtaposition of the dreaded feminist with the desirable sex object is evident when

women like USA Today sports columnist Christine Brennen speak out about the negative impact

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these depictions of women have on the legitimacy of women within sport media. A simple

observation that the lack of any substance in Barberi’s presentation, and willingness to play the

sex kitten role, “opens the door for the Neanderthals to say, ‘well see, that’s what women really

want to do in sportscasting’” evokes an automatic ‘feminist’ label (Costas, 2001; Gumbel, 2000).

In two on-air interviews on the topic of the sexual objectification of women in sport media,

Brennen was twice referred to as a ‘feminist’ by her male peers in the media (Goldberg and

Costas) because of her opposition to women being rewarded for their looks rather than their

accomplishments in sport. At a political level, the invocation of the “feminist charge”, the

allegation that one is a feminist serves to reinforce the lines of demarcation between women in

the system. Within this construction, acceptable women are fantasy women, who look good,

serve at the pleasure of men with a heterosexual world view, let their looks speak for them, and

are not prone to challenge the male value system in place. In contrast, the job requirements for a

serious reporter are the very antithesis of this. The role of a sportswriter is to be critical, tough,

non-compliant, challenging, and above all else, to have something of interest to say. Thus, the

“reality” of the female sportswriter conflicts with the “fantasy” of the sex object.

In his posthumously published work Vulgarians at the Gate: Trash TV and Raunch Radio,

comedian, prolific author, and composer Steve Allen (2001) argues that media conglomerates

engage in denial with regard to their motives in employing gratuitous violence and sex in pursuit

of profits and audiences. On the related subjects of violence, sexual objectification, and the

general mistreatment of women, sport media decision makers do the same.

Further, there is evidence to suggest that the unfettered world of the frat house is not just a

scripted entity that appears on sports television but is in fact a reflection of the industry itself. In

Michael Freeman’s (2000) history of ESPN, he reports that

“Behind the well-oiled and smart exterior of the network lurks a troubling
history of sexual harassment. ESPN has historically proven to be as
hostile a work environment for women as any Wall Street brokerage firm.
Throughout much of ESPN’s existence, dozens of male executives, producers,
anchors, and on-air personalities have been accused of sexually harassing

women employees” (p. 9)

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 From propositioning of female coworkers to obscene computer messages to forwarding

pornography on the web it appears, at least at ESPN, the vulgarians at times are not just at the

gate, they are running the show. As former anchor Karie Ross said, “The newsroom was all guys,

all testosterone, and many of those guys made it clear they did not want women around”

(Freeman, 2000, p. 10).

These work place dynamics are very much on the minds of young women aspiring to go into

the sport industry. In an interview with one young women, she related this story about an

incident that occurred during an internship with a major sports media organization:
“We were doing this promotion and all the male interns had been
given a legitimate assignment. After they all left, my [male] supervisor
said that he had an idea about what he wanted me to do for the promotion.
He wanted me to walk up and down the beach handing out flyers but he

thought that it would be good if I wore a bikini.”

In addition to personally experiencing sexual harassment, it appears that young women suffer no

illusions about the significance of female sexual objectification by the industry and what that

means in terms of the possibilities that exist for their own careers. Ten undergraduate women I

interviewed to ascertain their thoughts about how the Playboy “sexiest sportscaster”poll affected

their thinking about their own careers all believed that it undermined the credibility of women

working in the industry. Notably, already indoctrinated into the political dynamic of the sport

media culture, seven of the ten were adamant that they were not “feminists”, a label that they

hoped to avoid at all costs.

The Invisible Price Women Pay

Like an iceberg, the visible price women pay for access to jobs in the sport industry is modest

compared to what lies beneath the surface. A significant portion of the story with regard to the

impact the sport media industry’s job practices has on women is largely unreported. We know

that young women, after assessing the gender imbalance in the industry, opt out of the sport

media job market and pursue careers in other fields instead. Little is known of the women who

once worked in the industry and left, driven out by a resistant and recalcitrant male workforce.

16
 For the few women who do persevere, they may face the combined prospect of age and sex

discrimination, as Donna de Varona alleged in a $50 million lawsuit she filed against the

American Broadcasting Company (ABC) in September of 2000. Although Ms. deVarona has

since been employed by NBC and The Sporting News Radio, she stated that the lawsuit was not

about the money but about principle. “Fortunately, I can afford to make a statement about

principle. Other women in the business haven’t done what I’ve done because they can’t afford

not to work again”(as quoted in Martzke, 2000).

Ms. de Varona’s observation that coercive forces exist to discourage women from challenging

the industry is borne out in an article by Howard Manly (2000) of The Boston Globe about the

actions that were not taken by Lesley Visser, a former ABC colleague of deVarona’s who was

released around the same time as she. In the words of Manly, it was to Visser’s “credit” that she

“refused to badmouth ABC.” DeVarona as the “ugly feminist” is denigrated for breaking the

code of silence by filing a lawsuit that explicitly labels the treatment she received as

discriminatory, sexist, and ageist. With a seeming lack of curiosity about the validity of

deVarona’s complaint, Manly praises Visser for playing by the rules, remaining quiet and

“taking it”.

DeVarona’s stance, however, is an important one because it shows just how little acceptance

exists in the industry for women, how much of a value is placed on looks rather than

achievement, and how narrow the path women are permitted to follow in order to be successful.

In this sense, deVarona’s future is intimately linked to the young women who aspire to pursue

viable careers in the industry in the not too distant future. Just as our “intrepid reporter” Alyssa

Lulie from The California Aggie, offers “a gentle rejoinder to men everywhere: Women

sportswriters are sportswriters. End of story.”, deVarona’s $50 million rejoinder is a reminder

that for an accomplished female in the industry her story ought not to end with job termination

simply because she is a woman.7

Reducing the Price to Be Paid For Progress

A number of scholars (Allen, 2001; Dwokin & Wachs, 2000; Schell, 2000) argue that sport

17
media serves as a powerful vehicle to expose children, adolescents, and adults to the illusion of

what Sabo and Messner (2001) called “a shared cultural consensus about the elements that

constitute masculinity, femininity, and appropriate gender relations” (p. 30). No greater of an

illusion exists than the one that would allow for us to believe that the sport-media complex has

come to terms with gender in a way that advances the interests of women in this society.

If the future of young women like the ones mentioned in the introduction to this piece is to be

fostered, the hidden assumptions about gender that continue to place men in a superior position

in relationship to women must be challenged. In a practical sense, academics and industry

practitioners committed to achieving a truly more gender-balanced enterprise might consider the

following:

#1. Creating a watch-dog agency to better evaluate the price that is being exacted of women.

The price is far greater than we are willing to admit and the casualties, because so many of them

are invisible, need to be taken into account. Just as greater meaningful headway in the area of

compliance with Title IX at the college and university level was made because of the adoption of

the Equity in Athletic Disclosure Act, so too should an accountability mechanism that monitors

hiring and employment practices in sport media be developed. (Note: The NAACP has been

doing this with their media project targeting the representation of women and minorities. Also,

something along the lines of the Center for the Study of Sport in Society’s annual Racial Report
Card might prove to be an effective tool in this regard.)

#2. As women in sport achieve greater success at elite levels, the additional opportunities this

affords for media exposure should be examined in light of what these opportunities mean

systemically as well as individually. For example, the WNBA has participated the previous two

years in Playboy.com’s “Sexiest Babes of the WNBA”. Although the overture means greater

publicity for the league, and greater publicity is often thought of as a good thing, nevertheless to

participate in this is to become an accomplice to a system that oppresses women. In effect, an

act that women perceive as empowering becomes another tool in undermining the progress

women are making, serving to create a circumstance where women will eventually just be

18
spinning their wheels when it comes to making legitimate advancements in the industry.

#3. Understand that women’s progress is to some degree an illusion. If you are unpersuaded,

consider this. In the days following Australian golfer Karrie Webb’s winning of a career grand

slam, Sports Illustrated featured five women on that week’s cover (Sports Illustrated, July 2-8,

2001). Those women happened to be “the original 1972 Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders”.

Whereas only five other women have ever achieved the distinction of achieving a career grand

slam in women’s professional golf and only two have won the grand slam (“Karrie Webb

celebrates...” 2001; “Media make golf a man’s game,” 2001; Simmons, 2001), the more

compelling story from an industry perspective was the history of cheerleading in the NFL.

#4. Because this is in fact, the best of times in women’s sports, now is not the time to forget our

own history. In point of fact, this is exactly and precisely the time when we need to be more

attentive, more watchful, more insistent for things to change. This is the window of opportunity

that may lead to a profoundly changed sport-media complex. That change will not happen,

however, as long as women like Christine Brennen, Leba Hertz, Alyssa Lulie and Donna

deVarona are left to say the forbidden truth without the mass support of women in sport. Then

and only then, will real progress occur. And that price is worth paying.

19
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Endnotes
1
In the reference section, you will see a co-authored piece by Kathleen Sharp and Rachel Zuk,
now Rachel Gary. Rachel is an Ithaca College graduate who helped pave the way for the young
women mentioned here. Rachel is currently working as the director of media relations for the
music division of SFX.
2
In her 1999 book, The Rites of Men: Manhood, Politics, and the Culture of Sport, Burstyn
credits sociologist Jut Jhally with the term “sport-media” complex. This term refers to a the
“new entity that came into being as sport and commercial media forged deep links over the
course of the twentieth century” (p. 17). Burstyn centers this at the heart of a concept she calls
the “sports nexus” which includes not only the sport-media complex but other social complexes,
including the sport-industry, sport-medicine, and sport-state.
3
There is variability across media areas with regard to the percentage of female to male
coworkers. For examples, organizations like The Sporting News Radio (TSN Radio) have a
100% male workforce in the combined areas of hosts, sports reporter, anchors, and producers.
Donna DaVerona is listed as someone who does a weekly commentary. However, she is listed

23
by her name on The Sporting News website separately from the others designated as “on-air
talent”(go to http://radio.sportingnews.com/). Among the columnists who write for
CBS.Sportsline, all are male (http://cbs.sportsline.com). At ABCSports.com, 59 are listed as
“announcers”. Of that group, 53 are male (90%) while 6 are female (10%). In print media, the
writing staff of Sports Illustrated is 100% male (16 males, 0 females). At CNN/SI Network,
16% of the announcers are female (4 out of 24) (http://www.cnnsi.com/). Among people working
on the editorial, engineering, production, marketing and business development sides
atCNNSI.com, 17 of 90 are women (8%). Among the group listed by NBC as “commentators”
for the Sydney Olympics, 35% were female (9/26) while HBO Real Sports has 3 women, out of
a staff of 13 reporters who are female (23%) (http://www.hbo.com and
http://www.nbcsports.com/). All website directories and listings were last checked on 7/7/01).

4
In June of 2001, Playboy.com launched it’s second “Queens of the Court”, the Second annual
‘Sexiest Babes of the WNBA’ Poll. “The winner of the poll will be asked to pose for a Playboy
pictorial. (http://www.playboy.com/sports/features/index.html/.
5
A poignant moment occurs at the end of this program after Ms. Torres asserts unequivocally that
the sexualization of female athletes is a positive thing. In complete contradiction to this, she
quietly mentions at the end of the discussion that the pressure she felt to conform to a societal
ideal of a beautiful woman led to her developing an eating disorder.
6
Even at a company like NBC, which appears to have a better gender balance among some
portion of its broadcast team, has shown that it will engage in a philosophy of “cheap sex sells”
when it partnered with Vince McMann, owner of the World Wrestling Federation, to launch the
XFL, an enterprise where women were highly sexualized and a “frat house” atmosphere was
actively promoted. One boy, aged thirteen, was immortalized on screen as well as in print media
for holding a sign that read, “I’m here for the girls.”
7
See Michelle Smith’s article “Donna deVarona: Olympian with an athlete’s heart and an
activist’s mind” from May 6, 2001 in The San Francisco Chronicle for more background
information on deVarona’s commitment to making a difference.

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