50% female sport on bbc news and tv

[Girlofgold]

Whilst the bbc are at addressing pay disparity and diversity for their public pound. I would like to see 50% female sport coverage and reporting. It could be the start of a really great movement. Do you think?

Not sure why you would pick on the BBC. The bulk of women's sport on TV is on Sky who have the deep pockets to buy it up. The golf, the netball, the women's football and rugby are all there and all well worth watching.

Mockers. We're only really into netball and we do watch that, tennis and a bit of golf. However, not everyone has sky. I'm also picking on the BBC due to the public funded aspect and think it should be tackled along with their striving for equality of pay and diverse programming/representation. They could wheel out their small band of ever present presenters and put some celebrity welly behind it.

The average attedance at Liverpool 's home games in 2016 was 724.

Why should that be on TV?

For all sports investment and TV follow popularity not the other way around.
In 1929 92000 people went to the FA cup.final.

There was no investment in football then there was no TV. Football became popular because people went to see it on a Saturday. When women go to warch football TV and invedtment will follow. This is the same rule for sports.

it's an interesting idea OP, and a good one I think. will you write to the beeb about it?

...should have sad women's cricket on Sky, not so much football.

Interesting dispute in USA at the moment over demands for equal funding for the men's and women's national teams. USA are multiple world champs in women's football but the men get paid more, partly to keep them from defecting to foreign leagues.

In Britain, the story ought to be well-known about how women's football was started in WW1 and was a commercial sucess but was shut down after the war like so many other industries when the men came home and wanted 'their' jobs back. Association Football was defined as a male-only sport into the 1970s, with the seperate women's game fighting for recogntion.

ITV have the rights to England men's internationals. BBC cover the women.

A few baby steps would be useful.

Chelsea are in the semi-finals of the European Champions League.

It won’t be televised. Not BT, the BBC, ITV, Sky or even Eurosport. Despite the hours of quite ordinary men’s matches shown each week. Presumably, duh, because it is the women’s team. Even though they have already beaten a well-funded PSG and are facing probably the strongest woman’s team in Europe.

www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/47937511

And whilst other European Clubs have opened their large stadia to their women’s teams for important matches filling them with families and pensioners and others happy to see big event football at a low cost, those Chelsea fans who can get tickets will have to head out to some ground near Kingston.

And then we will be told that people are not interested in women’s sport.

The Lyon v Chelsea tie is on BBC Red Button.

The return fixture is on Chelsea TV only.

(Clubs own the rights to their home games.)

And there are a lot more CFC fans in and around Kingston than anywhere near SW6.

There’s no money in it. That’s what it boils down to.

Sponsorship, interest, audience - no one is going to champion women’s sport if there’s no money to be made.

The BBC aren’t investing in sport - haven’t for ages. They can’t really compete with Sky budgets, and aren’t that interested in investing in it anyway.

Mockers

When you say 'their' jobs do you mean the ones they were forced to leave agsinst their will so they could be bombed, shot at, gassed and mutilated?

Why didn't they deserved their job back?

It's not as populat because fewer women support women's sport than men supporting men's sport.

When people get 'cause' and 'effect' completely the wrong way round.

In Australia the AFLW (the women’s AFL league) has been phenomally successful. There’s evidence that lots of girls and young women are playing football because the AFLW has shown them athletic role models.

People are turning up to watch the women play, both on field and on television - not as a substitute for the men’s league, but as an enjoyable sport in its own right.

No. I do not believe I mean that.

And I'm not sure what point you are making about the reasons for intrducing conscription after 1916 and its place in the war effort, or its relevance to this discussion.

Mockers, when I last looked Kingston was nowhere near Chelsea. It is barely in London and the ground is a real trek to get to. Kingston is not even on the tube. And for Kingston dwellers, Chelsea is not their closest professional club, there are several that are closer. You might as well argue that since there are a lot of Man Utd supporters in Kingston, their women’s games should be played there. Plus the ground has nowhere near the capacity of the men’s, nor sufficient capacity to meet demand.

Seriously European and American clubs are doing a lot to promote the women’s game. A recent record attendance was over 60,000. There is absolutely every reason to believe that this game would have the same if TV and the Club were willing to give proper support.

is the state of women's football attendances after recent records?

There are a lot of girls playing football, especially in the North. (DD plays for a southern University team and almost every one is from the north, with skill levels rising year on year.) Why on earth should they have to sign up to Chelsea TV to see the biggest match, involving a British club, of the year.

Compared to men this is not even beginning to approach parity.

And Mockers, we don’t live that far from SW6, and believe you me almost all my kids friends support Chelsea. Quite a lot of parents had season tickets. I don’t know why you would think that was not the case.

There’s no money in it. That’s what it boils down to.

That's because sports is so 'male dominated' that they think the little people [aka women] still earn pin money and that there is no potential in women's sports for these opportunities.

A bit like when marketers realised women had money of their own to spend [gasp wot?]. Sports is so up it's own arse it hasn't worked it out yet.

With sports demanding huge money to show stuff I would have thought women's football could just offer to give the rights to the BBC or other terrestrial TV company. People will get to know teams and players and the sport would build from there.

Sakrifice, exactly.

If Stamford Bridge were opened up for the Chelsea match, there would be thousands of dads not only buying their daughters a pie and Bovril at half time (or modern equivalent) but also taking them into the club shop and buying them an overpriced shirt.

Shortsighted at minimum. And bizarrely other than one small catering outlet there is nothing in Kingston. It is as if the men have already decided there is no money in the women’s game.

Our DD takes her dad to women’s games. It’s really bonding. It started a few years back when lots of comp tickets to a women’s final Wembley were distributed in London schools and DD got a couple. They also watch matches on TV. One thing they have noticed is how ethnically diverse supporters are at women’s games. Asian families etc, whilst Premier League can be very white male.

The opportunities are there, if only people behind sports TV or marketing could see it.

I'm probably not alone in not having SKY so the only sport I see comes from the freeview channels I have access to where apart from athletics/gymastics there is very little women's sport shown.

I complained a few years ago about lack of coverage for women's sports and got this response:-

"I'm sure you can appreciate, that despite our best efforts, we can't accommodate the vast range of events available for the tastes of all sport lovers. This would also include other sporting events such as football.

A broadcast of a particular event can take up a lot of space in the schedules and to increase this coverage to show a wider degree would make it very difficult to balance the tastes of what we can broadcast, especially for people who may not prefer to watch sporting events.

A difficult decision has to be made by the BBC on the amount of time available to report on the days sporting results and which live sport will receive live coverage. The choices we make will not be appreciated by all sections of our audience."

What message are we sending our children - that most sports are for men only? Women's sport doesn't matter? How are we to know whether women's rugby is exciting if we don't see it? Are women's snooker or darts championships any less exciting than the men's?

To be honest, I can't get worked up at 50% coverage. But I wonder if coverage of women's sports gets even 5% of their sports airtime. FOI request will be interesting.

Who would anyone suggest we FOI and on what? The BBC for airtime and spend on male v female sport? Any other government depts on spend?

It's so easy to make a FOI request and can be anonymous.

Sports and sport competitions don't become popular by demanding that state-owned broadcasters give them air time, and that has never happened before.

State-owned broadcasters give coverage to sports and competitions which are most popular... and the sports which are most popular are those which are drawing in the largest crowds and generating the most buzz around their towns and cities.

For example, gaming competitions, historically, never received any air time on TV... but after such events exploded, the popularity was too much to ignore and now such events are broadcast on TV.

The way to ensure your favourite sport appears on TV is not to demand a state-owned broadcaster gives it air time just because you want it to have air time, but to do more work at the grassroots level to help the sport grow and help it attract more attention.

How many people demanding more air time for women's football are going to watch their local women's team play on a weekly or monthly basis? Are you bringing your friends along too? If you're not doing both of these, then that's what the problem is.

But unflushable that is exactly what women’s football has done. There is now a solid grassroots base, a good National team, good audience numbers for Olympics etc.

But the biggest match ever involving a British club.....and nada.

Women....and it’s men who make decisions on sports programming.

You sound a bit like Rachel McKinnon suggesting that women just train a harder.

How are we to know whether women's rugby is exciting if we don't see it?

But you can see it! Are you going to watch your local women's rugby team? Are you bringing your children along to see it? Something doesn't have to be on TV for you to see it! If you go and watch the sport... and if many people do the same... then the size of the crowd means that broadcasters will want to give it air time. It's the popularity of the sport which dictates whether or not it gets air time, not the other way round.

Are women's snooker or darts championships any less exciting than the men's?

Yes, they are. Women's snooker and darts are played to a lower standard... which is directly due to a smaller female player base in the sports... so if more women played darts and snooker, that would increase the standard of the sports, draw in larger crowds, etc, and it would get more air time.

Although personally, I can't see the major darts and snooker competitions can't simply be gender neutral.

But unflushable that is exactly what women’s football has done. There is now a solid grassroots base, a good National team, good audience numbers for Olympics etc.

Yes, and women's national football gets air time on TV. The women's football world cup is broadcast on TV. Which is exactly what I said; if a sport gets more attention, and draws in larger crowds, it will get air time on TV- not the other way round.

But the biggest match ever involving a British club.....and nada.

How many people are in the stands watching those games? Are you going to watch those games? Are you bringing your friends to watch the games?

Women....and it’s men who make decisions on sports programming.

People who make decisions on sports programming only care about money. No one (in the real world at least) cares about the gender of the people playing the sport; just how much money they can get by broadcasting the event, nothing else.

You sound a bit like Rachel McKinnon suggesting that women just train a harder.

Yeah, I didn't write that anywhere in my posts.

Why deliberately misquote my argument as something nonsensical which I never said?

And what about those of us who can't watch live? I live in a very remote corner of the UK and pay my TV licence just like anyone else.

Or my Mum who, before she died, was bed bound for years and lived for the women's rowing, when it was on? Yet lived somewhere a long way from rowing regattas.

Yes, more grassroots support would help. But, today's Sunday Times Sports section has dozens and dozens of articles and only 1 about a female doing a sport. Only one. And there are plenty of options to choose from out there. Not just football.