I am frequently amazed by how female fans are ignored by the big sports organizations. They cater to males so much. It seems they often assume that women don't like sports. They are so wrong.
I have to say that things are changing very slowly, but it is definitely a lot better than when I was a kid. But it seems that there is quite a long way to go. It's not news, people. Women love sports, too.
I found this old commentary that addresses this in part. A couple of things in it were of interest to me. One, is that boys and men watch a lot of sports. I guess that isn't truly surprising, but to see it quantified like this makes me realize how much more men watch than women. The second item was about women not getting as upset when their team loses or as jubilant as when their team wins. Wow, that is totally not my experience. I know a lot of women who get just as worked up as the men. Maybe they move on because they have other things to do besides watch sports, but seriously, I think they get just as worked up as the men do.
How do you react when your favorite team wins or loses?
http://espn.go.com/espn/story/_/id/7379853/espn-tries-solve-equation-women-sports-fans
COMMENTARY
Letter of intent
With its 'W' initiative, ESPN tries to solve the equation of serving women sports fans
Originally Published: December 22, 2011
By Kelly McBride | Poynter Review Project
...
Forty years after the passage of Title IX, the federal law that required schools to create equal sports opportunities for girls, the worldwide leader in sports has discovered that women might be interested? Yet the fact that no obvious competitors are trying to beat ESPN to this market suggests the entire sports media world is just as far behind the times.
Women make up just under half of ESPN's overall viewers, but they spend much less time actually watching sports on TV, said Kelly Johnson, ESPN director of media and promotion research. For example, the average man age 35-49 spends 227 hours a year watching sports on television. The average woman the same age spends just 92 hours a year watching sports on TV.
Yet the No. 3 television show this past January for women ages 18-49 was NBC's "Sunday Night Football," according to Nielsen, behind "Dancing With the Stars" and "Grey's Anatomy." Clearly there is a great opportunity for the network to grow its audience.
...
Here's what ESPN's research shows:
• Women have a different relationship to sports than men do. For men, understanding and watching sports validates their status as men. For women, the reverse is true: In spite of how much they know, women must constantly prove they are real sports fans.
• Men and women differ in the sports information they like to consume. Men look for nitty-gritty statistics and past performance history. Women like basic statistics and personal narratives.
• Men are overjoyed when their teams win and devastated when they lose. Women are happy with wins and disappointed with losses, but move on quickly.
• Nearly half of all men between ages 18 and 34 consider themselves serious or super fans; yet only one in five women in that age range see themselves that way.
• Although women watch more TV, men watch three to four times the number of sports shows compared to women.
• Men and women are both big fans of the NFL. But women also really like figure skating and the Olympics. Men like NCAA football and the NBA more.
• Female fans don't necessarily want to watch women's sports. In fact, more men than women watch the WNBA and the women's college softball tournament.
This is merely a simplified sampling of facts gleaned from volumes of research ESPN has on the topic of fans and their habits.
...
No comments:
Post a Comment