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?

Imteresting to whom?

To the sorts of people who turn up to watch womens football at the Olympics or at Wembley for a cup final or those who watch the She believes tournament and so on.

Not just women.

Why is there the assumption that only women will watch women's sport. My observation is that men who like watching sport will watch lots of different sports. So women's athletics, women's tennis, women's football. And I am specifically talking about a big match. In the same way as the England U19s would be on red button if the reach a final.

I find it hard to understand why women argue against it, say you need the gate numbers or whatever or whatever. There is plenty of recent evidence that people will watch big womens football matches, whilst broadcasters have been surprised at how popular women's hockey and netball matches were during the last Commonwealth games. I think the women hockey wasmore popular than the men's.

A big match is on. People will watch. There is no reason why the BBC should not make every effort to show it. But, being the BBC, they won't, but will probably show some sort of lower popularity men's sport instead on the same red button.

I have to apologise for my ignorance regarding women's football. I just watched the BBC news and they showed Arsenal Ladies playing at their home ground, and bearing in mind they are playing in the "Super League", I am taken aback.
Their home ground is not the "Emirates", but Meadow Park, home to Boreham Wood who play in the National League, and the ground capacity is 4,500 (2,800 standing), so the picture is much clearer now.
At the moment there is another match taking place in France, between Lyon Ladies and Chelsea Ladies, in the UEFA Women's Champion League and it is being played at the Parc Olympique Lyonnais, capacity 55,000. It should be noted that their usual ground for league matches is an academy ground next to the Parc with a capacity of 1,524.
It is therefore highly unlikely that spectator levels for women's football will not increase if they are being sidelined in very small grounds.

CLFC two-nil down at half-time, having scored an own goal and missed a soft penalty.

There are huge audiences for sport out there. They just sticks with the same tired old formula of football with the odd bit of something else.

Why not try? Why not have a day of 50/50. Or even try for 75/25? We pay for the BBC. Women too.

And, if like someone's Dad, I wanted to fly to see sport, I would have to be minted (120 miles to an airport from here, and that a pretty small one). And why would I when the sport I want to see is not advertised, promoted or made visible. When I have been brought up by the patriarchy to support men's sport, to get frantically involved in football and rugby?

No. They need to do better. And bollocks to spending years building it.

Some women can't even get a break for a cup of tea from caring duties. Men who "care" often take kids out (hence the Dad at the football with kids). I want it on the radio and television.

They could give it a bloody go. There are enough BBC channels now. Don't tell me they can't find a slot amongst all the repeats and DIY programmes to fit in SOME sport involving women.

The Chelsea game is live on the BBC now.

Andy, this is the first leg of the match on the BBC red button. Its the European semi final.

So Lyon have their women playing in the main stadium capacity 55,000 to let as many supporters in as possible. Plus TV is available to the BBC.

Its called encouraging women's sport.

The Chelsea return leg in contrast, is being played at their small pitch, shared with various other sports, somewhere outside Kingston. And only on Chelsea TV.

That is what I am moaning about. A really good chance to promote interest, and to recognise all those girls out there who play, yet the BBC/Chelsea are making no effort at all. Even though they would make plenty of money in the club shop.

And a good game. Lyon 2-1 up. Chelsea missed a penalty. DD is screaming at the TV, and her dad is almost as engaged.

Disclaimer- I have a really rather talented football playing dd

The women's game just isn't as good as the men's yet. It will be, and it's still great to watch, but it doesn't have the power and flow of the top men's teams. I watched England women play a few weeks ago and it's just no where near as exciting.

So people who are used to watch g the men's game might be disappointed.

Dont get me wrong, I love women's football and dd is determined to make it all the way , but it's got a long way to go.

The match i went to was in bbc2 tbf

Fazackerley, agreed. Though an advantage is that there not the huge gulf between, say, a University player, and a professional player. DD says quality is changing fast and the girls who have been playing in Club academies since the age of 9 turn up at University very skilled.

I can’t find the article but one of the London Academies separates girls from boys on skill levels, something they apparently do in Holland which has led to huge progress from the best girls training with the boys.

www.theguardian.com/football/2019/mar/25/arsenal-under-12-girls-boys-equal-footing

Yes dd plays in a girls team but against boys teams. They are really good and that's why I can see the quality of the game really improving over the next 10 years.

I feel I should apologise for the massive thread derail. However I hope there are some point that others can unpick.

There is not reason at all, in terms of interest money or whatever why Chelsea/BBC should not make the most of their women's real achievement to promote the women's game.

Yes lots of posts making excuses for the men who have decided not to.

Its just not good enough. There may be plenty of reasons why you don't televise swimming, horseriding or other sports where women either compete with men or in the same events of roughly equal interest. I don't necessarily agree with the dominance of football. But accepting this dominance means that it is right to question why the top women's matches are not covered. Especially as on this one we are out of step with Europe and the US.

At DDs University the men apparently get first dibs on the training facilities. They might have the wokest SU in Britain but sexism still runs through day to day stuff like a stick of Weston-super-Mare rock. The sort of thing we need to challenge and encourage our DDs to challenge.

At dds state secondary the girls aren't even allowed to play football! Boys only. Not on the curriculum apparently. She gets cheerleading instead

DD had a lot of that. Hence my theory that middle aged PT teachers were unwilling to offer sports away from the trad rounders and netball. The former was dead boring, and the latter favoured tall girls.

The take up in sixth form where they were given a free choice was amazing. 50% even though almost all had never played before. They had a great time. In part because you did not need to be that good to play.

There is a huge problem with encouraging girls to play sports. Yet they can be great for resilience and self esteem, as well as life long physical well-being. (There was a famous study some years back that suggested that Japanese girls who played tennis were physically strong and healthier well into middle age.)

Everyone from Chelsea/BBC should do their bit. The quick acceptance of the Rachel McKinnon and Sally Hines theories has me fearing that whatever has been said in the past, the men in positions of influence in sport have no interest at all. They just don't care about women's welfare.

So Lyon have their women playing in the main stadium capacity 55,000 to let as many supporters in as possible. Plus TV is available to the BBC

According to the BBC the attendance was 22,911. So depending on your stance either a lot or less than half full.

"According to the BBC the attendance was 22,911. So depending on your stance either a lot or less than half full."

A really good crowd IMHO, and it took place in a great stadium, unlike the majority of FA Women's grounds in the UK, where you can barely fit in 4,500 fans, plus the dogs and pigeons and people who climb over the fence to buy a pasty.

What's the problem with a seating capacity of 4500 if 1500 fans turn ip?

The attendance is pretty much in line with those of smaller premier league clubs. So pretty good. Those matches get televised. Also Lyon were always expected to get through to the final so the semis are not such a big deal for them.

Britain has more of a football culture and Chelsea, in the middle of a huge city could expect more. Price it right and quite a lot of dads would be happy to take their kids, especially daughters, to Stamford Bridge to see the best club in Europe. Premier league football is expensive and not always family or ethnic friendly, so womens football represents a different opportunity. With money then spent on concessions and the club shop.

Focussing on one match is a thread derail.

However I hope the "why not" is obvious. Here is a match that would get a typical premier league attendance at least. Plus is the best club achievement by a British team in a fast growing womans sport.

If the BBC/Chelsea cant rise to the occasion on this one, they are not going to on others.

TeeJay. Why would you think only 1500 would turn up? A 4500 capacity stadium will be sold out many times over for a match like this.

This is like the toilet stuff. Women posting that men in loos dont bother them so why should it bother others. Women saying they are not interested in sport so why care if other women are treated unequally.

Some women care about sport. Sport has been a major part of DDs teenage and University years and I have no doubt it will continue when she starts working. Many of her friends are similar. Womens sport gets shabby treatment from the BBC.(Sky recently have hired some very good women football commentators who give credibility to their women's football roots.) Those woke blokes dont seem to like women. (I personally have a problem with Gary Lineker who is so smugly blokey.)

The gender stuff is pushing girls back towards stereotypical roles. The bandwidth of what is acceptable girl behaviour seems to be narrowing. Some of the attitudes, including from the BBC, seem to be on the lines of a Mermaids seminar. If a girl wants to play football they must have a boy brain.

Perhaps it is no coincidence that almost all the senior sports women who have spoken up on gender issues are BBC commentators: Navratilova; Davies; Holmes; Radcliffe. The BBC seems stuck in some sort of misogynistic 50s dystopia, focused on gender and wanting women to be unseen and unheard. What is so threatening about women playing football. Why can't they show the match.

From a money making perspective I'm not really understanding why sponsors, tv, business etc are so slow to capture a new market. It feels like so many areas of life have wrung out for any possible drops of sales opportunities - why is this area so underdeveloped?

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For the big games women get the big stadiums. This years FA cup final is at Wembley.

For the small games they get the snall venues.

What's your point?

TeeJay, but that is exactly my point.

Lyon gave their main stadium for the first leg of the European League semi final and got an attendance typical of a mens Premier League game - even though it was played on Easter Sunday in a Catholic country. Plus allowed BBC to have the TV rights.

Yet the return game will be played at Kingsmeadow, a local authority ground Chelsea borrow from AFC Wimbledon's youth team.

You say the big matches played in big stadia. Can you actually name a bigger Club game in British women's football - ever. Britain is not the strongest country in womens football by some margin. There has been far better support in places like France Japan and the US. Our national team is significantly over performing at the moment, as is Chelsea in this European competition.

(Wembley as a national venue hosts a range of league and non league cup finals - that's its job. Going to Wembley when your small town club reaches a cup final is a long standing tradition. And the women's one gets a good crowd.)

Kingsmeadows capacity is 4,850 with 2,265 seats. That is not a big stadium for a match this size.

And it would not be so bad if the BBC were prepared to televise it. But no.

DD suggests the only silver lining is that the French team will be seriously surprised that they are playing a match this size on what feels like a training ground, and that might put them off.

Also why is it that women seem so reluctant to push for equality for women, and so quick to make excuses. This is a pretty cut and dried example. Big match. The French can treat it properly. We can't.

This is the stuff that would be a really easy win for our under performing MPs and their not worth the paper they are written on manifestos. This is the big society stuff that changes lives.

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I think you make a good point about the second leg being played at Chelsea's main ground.

I would agree that this would be fair.