If you scroll the sports channel television guide, it becomes abundantly clear that the majority of viewing time is devoted to men’s sports. I believe that this is because historically, competitive sport was the domain of men not women.
Traditionally girls, boys and men played sport, but women were not supposed to engage in such strenuous activity, especially competitively. In fact, it was only in the twentieth century that women were able to start to make their mark in competitive sport, the first professional baseball league didn’t start in America until the 1940s for example. However, even today, air-time for women is much less than men doing the same sports because, apparently, there is less revenue from female athletes. Yet this differential comes about because of the inequality in television coverage, marketing and funds for youth sports. If equal funds and marketing were supplied to women’s sports, then the revenues would also be similar to that of men which would mean advertisers and television stations would clamour for more airtime for female athletics.
I believe that equal air-time should be given to both because unlike the naysayers who proclaim that no one will watch, when women are on the same television channels playing sport, viewer figures are comparable to those of the men, in some cases even exceeding those numbers. Sceptics may argue that this is because women make up half the population, so they are watching but no men are. It doesn’t matter who is watching; if the viewing figures justify it, these women deserve equal air-time.
In conclusion, out-dated ideas surrounding female participation in sport, under funding, less marketing and the misguided belief that men won’t watch it, means that women who should be given equal time on the television as their male counterparts are being denied the opportunity.