Why growth of women’s sports coverage and advertiser interest is bogged down by small steps forward

By Sara Guaglione

Coverage of women’s sports has not historically attracted the same level of advertisers’ interest or media coverage as men’s sports. Inhibitors include lagging efforts by publishers in this space, a dominance of men in sports media and a struggle to convince advertisers of the value of aligning with content beyond big sports events. But progress is being made, albeit slowly.

Two years after launching its HighlightHER vertical to spotlight girls and women in sports, Bleacher Report is now pitching the property to advertisers. Meanwhile, legacy publishers like the Los Angeles Times are investing more resources into women’s sports. And advertisers are starting to catch on to what is shaping up to be an area of opportunity for brands.

The struggle for women’s sports coverage to inspire more investment from publishers and advertisers is a chicken-or-egg construct: Publishers blame advertisers for not putting more money into women’s sports content, while advertisers say publishers aren’t producing enough content to advertise against.

“Publishers need to step up their coverage of women’s sports” to attract more advertiser investment, said Kristi Wagner, director of Content+ at media agency Mindshare. “The ad industry has a long way to go before we see women’s sports receive even close to the interest that men’s does,” she said.

But Lauren Reynolds, executive editor of ESPN Digital, assures that women’s sports coverage is “an area of growth for us, and for a lot of media organizations,” adding their audience is demanding it and that “there’s enthusiasm for it. Media companies would be foolish to look past it.”

But media companies too often are looking past women’s sports. A USC/Purdue study published on March 24 found that women’s sports was severely underrepresented in television news and online media coverage. The study found that 95% of TV coverage focused on men’s sports in 2019. Coverage devoted to women’s sports in the study’s sample of daily online newsletters and social posts from publishers on Twitter was 8.7% and 10.2%, respectively. Of the 93 newsletters analyzed, eight led with a story about women’s sports in 2019.

Audiences’ interest in women’s sports is increasing, though, despite the coverage imbalance.

The 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup generated record viewership (993 million people watched on TV, 482 million on digital platforms), and the final was more popular than the 2018 men’s final, with a 22% larger audience.
Viewership for the women’s US Open tennis tournaments have been greater than for the men’s as well — but media coverage was lacking. According to a report published by accounting firm Deloitte in 2020, an analysis of 250,000 news articles found women’s tennis grand slam events received 41% less coverage than the men’s events.
The number of people who participated in ESPN Women’s Tournament Challenge brackets this year doubled from the 2019 number, according to a spokesperson.
ESPN Digital’s reach last year was up 4% year-over-year among women and girls — an ESPN spokesperson did not respond to a question asking what “reach” referred to by press time — and total unique …read more
Source:: Digiday

Author: Aaron