Sports in America are king. Whether it is warranted can be left up to your own opinions but that is reality. The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) has trademarked the phrase “March Madness”, the National Basketball Association (NBA) dominates Christmas day, and the National Football League (NFL) owns a day of the week. It is hard to not notice the big sporting events in the country but perhaps what is even easier to notice about these high-profile athletic events and sports broadcasting in America is the limited female representation during the broadcasts and the tokenism of the female gender used during broadcasts.
It becomes simple human nature to ask how can one of the largest industries in the country seemingly alienate an entire gender? Female acceptance into the sporting world did not come until it was literally required by the United States Department of Education office that focuses on Civil Rights. The department introduced Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. Title IX protects people from discrimination based on sex in education programs or activities that receive federal financial assistance. Title IX states: “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.”
Title IX applies to schools, local and state educational agencies, and other institutions that receive federal financial assistance from the department. Most significant to this subject matter is the requirement for equal opportunities for women in athletics. Prior to this there were female athletics for most but overall resources and opportunities for female athletes were limited. Before Title IX, one in 27 girls played sports. Today that number is two in five.
Title IX and subsequent growth in popularity of sports among females created a new generation of women who grew up having the opportunity to play sports. This precedent helped encourage and enable women to pursue careers in sports media-a sphere previously closed off to them- and allowed them legal protection. However, they also wanted to take the next natural step as many sports fans do enter the world of sports broadcasting but the industry was less receptive to this idea.
The history of women in sports media is an unnecessarily complicated history, because as mentioned before males made the entrance into the industry more complicated than needed. Even when women did breakthrough and land jobs in the industry they were immediately type casted as the pretty female on the screen to break up the monotony of males consistently being on the television screen. Phyllis George was the first female to be actually hired by a network to work in sports broadcasting. In 1975, George was hired as a reporter and co-host of the CBS Sports pre-show The NFL Today, becoming one of the first women to hold an on-air position in national televised sports broadcasting. While the former Miss America winner was very talented, George had little journalistic background, so she often presented information that someone else wrote. George was replaced by Jayne Kennedy, who also lacked football knowledge but fit the role of another pretty female that could be on television to add a feminine touch to the male dominated airwaves.
Tokenism explains women's occupational experiences and their behavioral responses to those experiences in terms of their numerical proportion, suggesting that barriers to women's full occupational equality can be lowered by the hiring of more women in organizations that are highly-skewed male. The concept of "tokenism" has been used widely to explain many of the difficulties women face as they enter traditionally male occupations but the concept can also be equated with race, sexuality and even religion. It is important not to view tokenism as an issue that only affects women in sports media but also that it is a true epidemic.
Each Saturday during FOX Sports national college football broadcast their famous play-by-play announcer Gus Johnson, will guide the broadcast to the sideline reporter so the viewer at home can get a feel for the weather conditions, injury update or maybe even a last-minute quote from the head coach. All pretty standard stuff for a major sports broadcast. But when Gus Johnson does this each week, he says “Now we’ll head down to the field and hear from Jenny Taft, the All-American girl!!”.
The three words “All-American girl” refer to the American ideal that an “All-American girl”, are women and girls that have that bright blonde hair, light-colored eyes and fair skin. Stereotypically, those characteristics tend to be associated with the girl next door in American culture. In addition, they’re the girls who you’ll see dressed in a classic way as well. The portrayal of this belief is similar to those who believe strongly in the American Dream. They are both outdated and not indicative of how people commonly think today.
This is not a defamation attempt on Gus Johnson because he is a high level broadcaster that provides energy at all the right times on a broadcast and is enjoyable to listen to. But we also have to understand that Gus Johnson is unknowingly contributing to the role of tokenism of women on television because it further personifies the belief that that is how women on television should look. Both can be true.
While other sideline reporters do not all look identical to Jenny Taft, many share similar attributes to her, with the most common being the overall beauty. The intention of this not to chastise these talented reporters for being good at their jobs, but rather to call attention to the fact that major networks that broadcast the biggest sporting events have lent their hand in years and years of typecasting women for specific jobs. This becomes difficult to navigate at times because while Phyllis George is pioneer for women in sports broadcasting, she was a part of the precedent that attractive women can work in sports but only as the token female not as an expert.
Change in the industry is however on the horizon for women who yearn for the acceptance of them working as play-by-play announcers or color commentators. In September, the Milwaukee Bucks announced Lisa Byington as the team’s full-time television play-by-play broadcaster on Bally Sports Wisconsin. Making her the first ever female to hold such a position for a major men’s professional sports team. In March of 2021, the Portage, Michigan product became the first ever female play-by-play voice to work the NCAA men’s basketball tournament as she called First Round games for CBS and Turner Sports. In addition to that, Byington worked the 2021 Olympic Games in Tokyo for NBC Sports as a men’s and women’s soccer play-by-play announcer and also did play-by-play for the Women’s World Cup on FOX in 2019.
In 2017, Byington became the first female play-by-play voice for a college football game on the Big Ten Network and shortly after was part of an MLS game broadcast that was believed to be the first all-female broadcast of any of the five major men’s professional leagues.
Lisa Byington’s resume just from 2017 to present is nothing short of impressive and it is something that aspiring Multimedia-Journalism students would metaphorically kill for. Her personal growth in the industry and her resolve is admirable to say the least. During the same stretch of her life that she was experiencing professional growth, she was still working as a sideline reporter for the NCAA men’s basketball tournament on CBS and Turner Sports. Her persistence as a professional was greater than the years and years of tokenism of females in the world of sports media.
Lisa Byington is more than just a female excelling in a male dominated field of work, she has become a trailblazer in the industry. In early December, Beth Mowins became the first ever female play-by-play announcer to call a nationally televised NBA game on ESPN. That doesn’t happen without Lisa Byington. Remarkably, last spring during a game between the Toronto Raptors and the Denver Nuggets, the TSN broadcast became the first ever all female broadcast in NBA history. Play-by-play duties were handled by Meghan McPeak while WNBA star and Canadian National Team member Kia Nurse joined as the analyst. Sideline duties were handled by Kayla Grey while the duo of Kate Beirness and Amy Audibert held things down during pregame, halftime and postgame.
Conversely, if this broadcast does not run smoothly, Lisa Byington is likely not given an opportunity by the Milwaukee Bucks. These women are all talented and are deserving of all the opportunities they are getting, but it is imperative to understand that their success is connected. Since the field is so male dominated, male executives can easily point to female led failures to justify their decisions.
"We need more women in this industry. We need those voices. We need that perspective. We need them making coverage and hiring decisions." Lisa Wilson, recently told ESPN . In addition to that, leagues need to be the face of change. The NBA is clearly at the front of this but other leagues need to be better, fans need to be better. Those wanting change have vowed to not rest until the everyday, average fan does not realize that it is a woman calling a major sporting event. Now is when we normalize women in the sports broadcasting world.
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