Clicks, Shares & Hearts: Social Media is Closing the Women’s Sports Coverage Gap

Women’s sports media share has grown from 4% to 15%, thanks to new & social media.?

For decades, women’s sports have received just 4% of total sports media coverage. Dr. Cheryl Cooky, an Associate Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Purdue, has focused her research on studying the sports media landscape - and over the last few decades, Cooky’s research has revealed that women’s sports receive just a tiny sliver of sports media coverage - fluctuating between 4-5%.?

What’s important to note here about the 4-5% number (as pointed out by sports media expert, Jane McManus) is that Cooky’s research has always tracked coverage from traditional sports media shows and outlets - for example, ESPN & SportsCenter. Social media and streaming platforms, however, are not accounted for in Cooky’s number because when this research was conducted, social media and streaming simply didn’t exist.

At the risk of stating the obvious, this means for the last few decades, men’s sports have received 96% of total media coverage from traditional sports media outlets. And frankly, I think that’s alarmingly irresponsible. The reality is that the lack of coverage that has been perpetuated by these systems of traditional sports media outlets have been suppressing the growth of women’s sports.??

This week, a new study conducted by The Collective at Wasserman revealed that the percentage of total women’s sports media coverage is now clocking in at 15%.?

Wasserman’s study is slightly different from Cooky’s original study though, in that it accounts for consumer behavior on social media and streaming platforms. And what Wasserman found is that the growth of women’s sports coverage has been driven almost exclusively by streaming and social media, as coverage from linear broadcast and digital publications from traditional outlets still lingers right around 5%.?

When I first read this, candidly, I was pretty angry. Angry about how little traditional media outlets have done to champion women’s sports.

However, my anger quickly shifted from anger to gratitude. Specifically, gratitude for emerging women’s sports platforms - like Just Women’s Sports, The GIST, On Her Turf, HighlightHER, GOALS (yeah, we’ll pat ourselves on the back!), SHOT:CLOCK, Parity, and TOGETHXR - and grateful to women athletes who have taken it upon themselves to cover women’s sports through social media.?

Social media has democratized the creation and dissemination of sports media coverage and therefore, as Wasserman’s report reveals, helped bridge the sports media coverage gap. Thanks to social media (and those who have harnessed it as a tool), women's sports are no longer an afterthought, but are slowly becoming a central component of the sports media landscape.

What I’m taking away from all of this is that while it’s wonderful that total media coverage of women’s sports has grown from 4% to 15%, we still have a long way to go until equity is achieved.

However, Wasserman’s report proves that the work that the non-institutionalized women’s sports media community is doing is working.

Women’s sports coverage provided by athletes, creators, and new media companies is pushing the women’s sports industry forward, and we won’t stop until there is parity.?

This article is an excerpt of Clicks, Shares & Hearts: Social Media is Closing the Women’s Sports Coverage Gap originally published on Parity's blog. Click here for the full-length piece.

Caroline Fitzgerald (she/her) is a contributing writer for PARITY | A Group 1001 Company and the CEO & Founder of GOALS | Women’s Sports - a women's sports marketing consultancy & media platform. Caroline launched GOALS in 2020 after recognizing that there was an opportunity to help women's sports teams sign more sponsorship deals - and help brands see the business value around investing in women's sports. GOALS also produces the leading women's sports business podcast - The Business Case for Women's Sports, which is presented by Ally.