Women’s Sport Spectatorship: An Exploration of Men’s Influence

2011 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 190-201 ◽  
Author(s):  
Annemarie Farrell ◽  
Janet S. Fink ◽  
Sarah Fields
Keyword(s):  
Strong Influence ◽  
Perceived Barriers ◽  
Women's Sport ◽  
Season Ticket ◽  
Women’S Sports ◽  
Women's Basketball ◽  
Collegiate Basketball ◽  
The Spectator ◽  
Leisure Interests ◽  
Socializing Agents

While women are increasingly becoming vested fans of men’s football, baseball, hockey, and basketball, the perceived barriers—sociological, psychological and practical—to watching women’s sports still appear formidable for many female fans. The purpose of this study was to investigate the lack of female consumption of women’s sport through the voices and perspectives of female spectators of men’s sport. Based on interviews with female season ticket holders of men’s collegiate basketball who had not attended women’s basketball games for at least 5 years, the most robust theme to emerge was the profound male influence in the spectator lives of women. This influence was a lifelong phenomenon spanning generations, beginning with grandfathers and brothers and continuing through husbands and sons. Other factors combined with this strong influence to block participants’ consumption of women’s sport. These include a lack of awareness and access to women’s sport and the existence of socializing agents who empasized and prioritized male leisure interests.

A Quest for a Market: A Profile of the Consumers of a Professional Women’s Basketball Team and the Marketing Implications

1999 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 103-126 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ketra L. Armstrong
Keyword(s):  
Financial Stability ◽  
Marketing Strategies ◽  
Professional Sport ◽  
Sport Organizations ◽  
Women's Sports ◽  
Women's Sport ◽  
Discretionary Time ◽  
Women’S Sports ◽  
Women's Basketball ◽  
Basketball Team

Women’s sports is at an all-time high, as evidenced by the emergence of a number of professional women’s sport leagues (such as basketball, baseball, and fast-pitch softball). Notwithstanding the growth and popularity of women’s sports, these leagues will have to compete with other forms of leisure for consumers’ discretionary time and resources. Since financial stability is vital to the longevity of the developing women’s leagues, the competition for consumers will require a greater need for the marketers of women’s professional sport organizations to understand the variety of factors that influence sport consumers’ behavior and shape the composition of their respective markets. Presented in this article are the results of a study in which the consumers of one of the professional women’s basketball teams that competed in the American Basketball League (ABL)were investigated. The teams’ spectators are profiled as sport consumers, factors that influenced their attendance, are identified and implications for effective marketing strategies are noted.

“I Can’t Stand Women’s Sports”: The Perception of Women’s Sports by Polish Sports Journalists

2019 ◽  
pp. 216747951987688 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natalia Organista ◽  
Zuzanna Mazur ◽  
Michał Lenartowicz
Keyword(s):  
Media Coverage ◽  
Women's Sports ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Sports Media ◽  
Radio Stations ◽  
Women’S Sports ◽  
Sports Coverage ◽  
Inferior Status ◽  
Female Sports ◽  
Socializing Agents

This article analyzes the opinions of Polish male ( n = 18) and female ( n = 18) sports journalists on the representation of women’s sports in media coverage. The surveyed journalists represented journalists from national television stations, radio stations, and press and Internet media. Some of them were working simultaneously in various mass media outlets. In-depth interviews were conducted in various locations in Poland in 2018. An analysis of the journalists’ views from 36 semi-structured interviews indicated a general consensus among the surveyed sports journalists, both male and female, on the inferior status of women’s sports and women’s sports coverage, a negation of need to realign the inequitable coverage of women’s sports and the perception that sports are a neutral institution with respect to gender. The investigated female sports journalists presented more negative and straightforward views on women’s sports than their male colleagues. This article also indicates the minority status of female sports journalists in Poland and their process of socialization in the profession; it discusses the first male socializing agents that introduced and influenced the female journalists with respect to sports as factors that may be responsible for the journalists’ biased belief in the subordinate nature of women’s sports in general and their secondary position in sports media.

Women’s Sport and Questionable Sex

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jaime Schultz
Keyword(s):  
Social Control ◽  
Female Athletes ◽  
Women's Sports ◽  
Women's Sport ◽  
American Women ◽  
Disadvantaged Women ◽  
Women’S Sports ◽  
Testing Policies

This chapter explores how leaders of several international athletic federations worked to quell anxieties about “manly” women competitors by instituting “sex-testing” policies to verify the femaleness of female athletes. Purporting to safeguard women's sport and its participants, the tests have too often disadvantaged women and served as a powerful form of social control that encouraged normative femininity in the context of sport. Although most organizations have since declared an end to sex-testing in their official policies, new forms of surveillance and detection continue to define who counts as a woman in the context of sport. For better or worse, the introduction of the sex-test signified that women's sports were on the rise, and in the 1970s American women went through what many felt was an athletic revolution.

Newspaper Representation of Women Athletes in 1984 and 1994

1996 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 65-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hilary Mathesen ◽  
Kay Flatten
Keyword(s):  
Great Britain ◽  
General Population ◽  
Women Athletes ◽  
Sport Participation ◽  
Women's Sports ◽  
Women's Sport ◽  
Representation Of Women ◽  
Time Period ◽  
Women’S Sports

This research was to assess changes in Great Britain (GB) in the percent coverage of women’s sports in six national and Sunday newspapers (Telegraph, Guardian, Independent, Express, Mail and Mirror) between 1984 and 1994. Measurements were taken of all sports articles on the front pages, editorial pages and sports pages for the period 1st-14th July in both years. Data were categorized into male only, female only and mixed articles per day, square centimetres per day and photos per day. There was a decrease in percentage coverage of women’s sport coverage (articles per day down 5.2%; cm2 per day down 5.2%; photos per day down 7.1%) while the overall coverage of sport increased. During the time period the portion of GB Olympians who were women increased by 7% and there was a 3% increase in proportion of sports participants in the general population who were women. An adjustment index is presented which uses population figures and sport participation figures to calculate the proportion of sport participants who are female. This index was used to assess fairness in reporting sport.

Image and Investment: Sponsorship and Women's Sport

2001 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 219-246 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sally Shaw ◽  
John Amis
Keyword(s):  
Decision Makers ◽  
Media Representation ◽  
Women's Sports ◽  
Women's Sport ◽  
Sports Teams ◽  
Women’S Sports ◽  
Values And Beliefs ◽  
The Media ◽  
Marketing Tool

Studies that have examined the disparity in investment between men's and women's sports are rare and are generally distributional in nature. Little research has been carried out that has explored the reasons why managers tend to invest in men's sport instead of women's. Given the rise in sponsorship spending, and the increasingly strategic nature of such investments, this represents an important gap in the literature. The purpose of this paper was to explore conceptually and empirically some of the possible reasons for this disparity. By examining the agreements made by the sponsors of two international women's sports teams, we found support for the contention that the values and beliefs of decision makers, the media representation of sport, and mimetic pressures on managers combine to heavily influence decisions about what and who to sponsor. We also suggest that if such factors can be overcome, women's sport has the potential to be a very useful marketing tool for certain firms.

scholarly journals The role of the International Olympic Committee in the development of women`s sports in Muslim countries

2020 ◽  
pp. 44-47
Author(s):  
A. Domina
Keyword(s):  
Significant Role ◽  
International Olympic Committee ◽  
Women's Sports ◽  
Women's Sport ◽  
Muslim Countries ◽  
Number Of Factors ◽  
Women’S Sports ◽  
The World ◽  
Cultural Features

The development of women's sports as a whole depends on a significant number of factors that directly or indirectly influence this process. The development of women's sports in Muslim countries faces additional obstacles in the form of socio- historical and socio-cultural features of Islamic conservative society. But, in recent decades, the process of women's sport development has intensified significantly, in Muslim countries in particular. A significant role in the process of becoming a women's sport is played by the International Olympic Committee in cooperation with the world organizations

Does Being a Sport Fan Provide Meaning in Life?

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Elizabeth B. Delia ◽  
Jeffrey D. James ◽  
Daniel L. Wann
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Meaning In Life ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Team Identification ◽  
Women's Sport ◽  
Instrumental Case Study ◽  
Case Study Design ◽  
Women's Basketball ◽  
Sport Fan

Adding to research on team identification and well-being, inquiry into meaning in life and team identification could illuminate how sport fandom impacts consumers’ lives. In the current study, an instrumental case study design was used to explore how team identification impacts meaning in life, focusing on significance. Participant diaries and interviews with identified fans of a professional women’s basketball team revealed that connecting with family and friends, supporting women’s sport, and enhancing mental health via support of the team were sources of significance in participants’ lives. The findings illustrate that meaning in life is not necessarily experienced just from being a highly identified fan. Instead, specific elements of one’s connection to the team provide meaning. The findings also highlight the importance of close relationships over imaginary intimate relationships, impacting social justice among fans of women’s sport, and how mental health via fandom may provide older adults significance.

Rules, Rulers, and the “Right Kind” of Competition

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jaime Schultz
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Physical Educators ◽  
Women's Sports ◽  
Women's Sport ◽  
Women’S Sports ◽  
Sport Skills ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Right ◽  
United States Olympic Committee

This chapter discusses how women physical educators began to reevaluate their collective position against intercollegiate, commercial, and hypercompetitive sports for their students. Particular attention is given to a series of National Institutes on Girls' Sports, jointly sponsored by the Division for Girls and Women's Sports (DGWS) and the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) that took place during the 1960s. At these clinics, educators, recreation leaders, and other interested parties learned the necessary tools to teach sport skills to their respective charges and to encourage them to engage in “the right kind of competition.” The emergent groundswell of support was an important antecedent to the subsequent developments in women's sport.

The Psychological Meaning of Team Among Fans of Women’s Sport

2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (6) ◽  
pp. 579-590
Author(s):  
Elizabeth B. Delia
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Social Identities ◽  
Social Movement Organizations ◽  
Women's Sport ◽  
Sport Team ◽  
Women's Basketball ◽  
Central Elements ◽  
Almost All ◽  
Movement Organizations ◽  
Interpretive Mode

To date, almost all team identification inquiries have focused on men’s sport, with minimal studies using women’s sport to examine the concept. Recognizing social identities are fluid and context dependent, the purpose of the current study was to understand the psychological meaning of team among individuals who identify with a women’s sport team. Using an interpretive mode of inquiry, the author conducted interviews with fans of a professional women’s basketball team. Central elements of team meaning were gender equality (contributing to social change) and pure sport (perceptions of game play and player characteristics). These aspects jointly contribute to a paradox experienced by fans, in that perceived purity may be sacrificed in realizing social change. Theoretical implications include the ability of teams to represent social movement organizations, as well as the need for individuals to shed status-irrelevant aspects of an identity to raise a low-status group.

Sportgulation: Courts as ‘deus ex machina’ in defining the ‘public interest’ in sport broadcasting – The case of Israel

2017 ◽  
Vol 79 (2) ◽  
pp. 190-202 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ilan Tamir ◽  
Yehiel Limor
Keyword(s):  
Public Interest ◽  
Women's Sport ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
The Public ◽  
Private Interests ◽  
Public Broadcasting Service ◽  
Women's Basketball ◽  
Court Intervention ◽  
Broadcasting Service ◽  
Israeli Supreme Court

In 2005, following an appeal to the High Court of Justice, secret financial agreements between the Israel Broadcasting Authority and Maccabi Tel Aviv basketball team (a privately owned team that plays regularly in top European tournaments) were exposed. The documents revealed that the Israel Broadcasting Authority paid 26 million dollars in the previous six years for broadcasting Maccabi’s games, in addition to indirect payments related to sponsors. At the same year, the Israeli Supreme Court ordered the Israeli Broadcasting Authority to broadcast all games of the Israeli women’s basketball champion, as part of European tournaments, after the Authority refused to do so. Why was one team favored by the public broadcasting service while the other required court intervention? Who, then, defines the public interest in sport? Who enjoys being broadcast: only national teams in popular sport branches (football and basketball) or private teams as well? Is it ‘men only’ or women’s sport is also considered worthy to be broadcast? This study seeks to examine the pressures and interests regarding sport broadcasting and focus on the role of courts as a ‘deus ex machina’ in solving the competition between the public and private interests. Based on analysis of courts’ decisions and in-depth interviews with senior officials at the three regulatory organs, who regulate all Israeli TV outlets and channels, we draw a complicated web of economic, political, and legal interests and pressures. When no one wins the ‘pressure game,’ it comes to court, which has to decide and define what a ‘public interest’ is, and thus becomes, de facto, a fourth regulator of the TV in sport broadcasting. The decisions made concerning sport broadcasting rights in Israel offer a window in the wider question of how Israel defines the public interest in broadcasting.

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