THERE ARE MANY reasons I am incredibly lucky to work for TheScore/The42.ie, but undoubtedly the main one is the level of coverage we provide women’s sport.
Let’s not forget, Irish women have provided us with some of our finest sporting moments over the past year including the Irish women’s U19 side falling just short of a European Championship final, the women’s rugby team’s victory over four time World Cup winners New Zealand and, of course, Katie Taylor’s fifth world boxing title in a row.
But what I love about this website is that we’re not just there for those marquee, front-page-making events, we also cover ladies football, camogie, rugby and soccer from club level right up to inter-county and international in a way I believe all media organisations should.
The well worn argument for lack of coverage elsewhere is that women’s sport isn’t good enough and there isn’t an audience for it. That’s bullshit of course.
The simple fact is that, the more coverage a sport gets, the more people are likely to attend. The more people who attend, the more money goes into the sport. The more money floating around for coaches, high-performance training, etc, the higher the standard.
TG4 have been at the forefront of women’s sports coverage in this country showing GAA, the Rugby World Cup and Katie Taylor’s successful world title defence as well as their regular coverage of ladies football and camogie. They’ve shown there is an audience for it and perhaps it’s time that RTÉ followed suit.
As well as increased coverage, it would also make a nice change if articles on the achievements of Irish sportswomen didn’t inevitably descend into a critique on the attractiveness or otherwise of the subject.
It rarely, if ever, happens with male athletes and it shouldn’t happen with women’s sport either.
So my sporting wish for 2015 is the same sporting wish I have every year, that we treat all sportspeople equally.
Afterall, if we celebrate a Katie Taylor world title the same way we would a male boxing one, why shouldn’t we expect the same level of reporting on the camogie championship as we get on the hurling one?
Why isn’t there more coverage of men’s fashion in the media? All I ever see is women’s fashion in every magazine, more women should support men’s fashion and then there’d be more of it.
Women don’t even support women’s sport
Women’s volleyball needs to be shown more on television.
Beach volleyball that is
Oh most definitely Chris.
“The well worn argument for lack of coverage elsewhere is that women’s sport isn’t good enough and there isn’t an audience for it”
Twickenham 6 nations after England mens game the ladies took to the field. The place was full for mens game and empty for the ladies game. The TV viewers dropped considerably too. So that proves there is not an audience for it. In an ideal world there would be equal demand for both male and female sports but there is not. Why should TV stations show sport that would not get the viewers ? If Katie Taylor was fighting the same time as Corrie or Eastenders what would pull in more female viewers ? I would guess the soaps.
Does Steven actually believe this or is he being politically correct?
Keep up the good work Steve
Why just volleyball Ben?
I find it such an exciting sport to watch, I feel it needs more recognition and fully believe it would take off.
Ben, I like the way you think. I think RTE should consider you as head of their sports dept.
Eh where did Stevens comment go?
Well I would have loved to have seen the women’s 6N matches, no major hoo hah where I am so missed all coverage. I agree in principle that there should be more coverage. The medium is not male property. But let’s not stray into yawn territory. ..lets really big up the good and drop the bad. Just as with mens, no point covering something just cos it’s women, We have Fashion TV for that.