#83: Column - Investing in Women's Sports Means Investing in Those Covering It

I'm going to take you back a few years here if that's cool with you. Not too far, but let's go back to August 2022.

I was (regrettably) on Facebook, scrolling as one does, when I saw a topic come up about Brittney Griner being detained in Russia and how it has to do more with pay disparities.

Here's a look at it.

Not bad. Good take. Good stuff.

But I knew the second that I clicked the comments of this post that was made by a former classmate in high school, that it would be crawling with misogyny.

You know, just another day on Facebook.

So, like I did often at the time, I decided to step in.

And, well, it kept going from there.

Basically, what I was trying to get across is that you can say that there aren't eyeballs for women's sports, but you also have to look at where they are being broadcasted and the time slots they get.

That was 2022.

And, well, it's come to fruition, right? We've seen mega TV rights deals across women's basketball, women's soccer, women's volleyball, women's softball, and women's hockey. You now (yes, it's annoying) have to have six different streaming services to watch the WNBA just like other sports.

But the big players are doing what we've asked: they are investing in women's sports and putting them in prime TV spots so that they can draw actual eyeballs.

And it's working.

WNBA games on ESPN averaged around 1.2 to 1.3 million viewers, which is up 5 percent year over year. CBS viewership was up 17 percent year over year, as well.

It's what happens when you invest in your league and the product. Do I like that a bunch of NBA-led men are investing in the league on the ownership side? Not really, no. But again, they wouldn't be doing this if the league was losing the amount of money that naysayers would have you believe that they are.

The investment is there, and so are the eyeballs.

But the investment in people covering women's sports is not there. And, well, that's troubling.

You all know about the comments from UCLA's head coach Cori Close, right? It's the holidays, so let me remind you about what she said after the Bruins win at Ohio State on Sunday:

“Honestly, if I’m being really blunt with you, the energy in the building was great, but having no media here at all from either team or either — no AP, no nothing, doesn’t say a lot,” Close said after UCLA’s win on Sunday. “We’re the only double-ranked game out today; the only one in the country, and we had no media day today. No media here. You’re the only one that’s asked to talk to me. And credit to you, but I don’t mind if you print that either. Like for the only game that had two ranked opponents to not have more coverage over this particular game — disappointing, honestly.”

Hey, I get it. It can be frustrating. And Close is right. Her team deserves more coverage nationally and all women's sports deserve just as much coverage as the men's teams get.

Before we go further, I'd be remiss if I didn't share this article from Thomas Costello who covers Ohio State for SB Nation. He was there at the game that Close is talking about, and he wrote about this very subject. I recommend taking 10 minutes and reading it.

I went to Georgia Tech for its second game of the season (it wasn't against a cupcake or during the week at noon, so you could argue it was really its home opener) against Princeton. I had a press pass and got there early to do some pregame stuff.

There was one other person on press row.

One.

In the postgame press conference, it was only me (white guy) and one other (white) guy that covers college sports for 24/7.

Mind you, this was my first Georgia Tech game that I covered, and I was leading the charge for the press conference for the home coach.

They didn't even have a press conference for Princeton because the NCAA doesn't make it mandatory that both coaches will have a press conference like you see across professional sports.

So when no one was there to ask any questions to Close after UCLA's big win, I understood the frustration.

But it's always something that deserves to be looked at with a wider lens.

Most of the people that I know who cover women's sports do it because they love the game that they cover and they want to give these athletes the coverage that they deserve.

But a good 90 percent of them do it for little to no money, covering all of the costs out of pocket.

There are a few who have one of the coveted jobs of doing this full time, but they are few and far between.

I write for Winsidr. I get paid very little to do it. You could take the total amount that I got paid by them in 2025 and it wouldn't have been enough to cover my entire four-day trip to Birmingham for the Elite Eight last year.

So while I share in Close's frustration about the lack of coverage, I also understand it.

It's also worth mentioning that schools like UCLA have shifted conferences, traveling more to the east coast and midwest than it has in the past.

It's exhausting enough for the athletes, let alone for college media at UCLA to do this.

Print media is all but dead. Digital media is hurting. College media? Forget about it.

You'll find typos in this newsletter each week. It's because I'm a one-person shop and I miss things. That's expected. This is something that I do for fun.

But outlets are letting go of people like copy-editors, too, thinking that they are expendable. Because if you don't bring in revenue, you don't matter to these papers.

There's a science behind it, and there's a reason why newsrooms have monitors all over the walls tracking the number of clicks that their stories get.

Because that's what they care about.

And historically, women's sports haven't generated those clicks. Because of that, these outlets are missing out on covering some of the best athletes in the world and sharing their stories.

It's why outlets like The San Francisco Chronicle should be praised for not only having Marisa Ingemi on its staff covering women's sports full time, but sending her on the road throughout the season to be with the Golden State Valkyries each step of the way.

The same goes for USA Today with friend of the program, Meghan Hall.

And you know what? It's working.

Ingemi's articles are some of the best-performing pieces on the website. And she isn't writing for clicks. She's covering women's sports.

Full stop.

That's the investment that we want to see. That's the investment that women's sports deserve.

The argument for the longest time was that no one watched women's sports, so why invest in them?

But when (sighs) billionaires invested in covering them at their networks, it worked.

Because we know that everyone watches women's sports.

But not everyone can cover them. Outlets prefer to have people like me who love them and are able to travel to games for little to no pay to provide coverage instead of playing people to do it full-time.

That's not a good thing.

It's not a good thing to have systemic issues get in the way of people looking to cover sports or try to get into this field. To rely on people who have the privilege to have a job that allows them to also go to games, practices, on the road, and write about them is a bad thing – not a good thing. You can think of it the same way as internships in college.

White people are more likely to get paid internships than Black people. For unpaid internships, there are barriers in place for those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds to work these because they have to have other means to support themselves.

Internships turn into job opportunities, which turn into job growth.

Unpaid internships and unpaid work are one and the same.

It makes it harder for people who should be covering women's sports to actually cover them.

And do you know what that leads to?

It leads to a lot more people who look like me covering the sport.

And that, too, is not a good thing.

Until Next Time

I asked my friend Ally what I should write about for this newsletter. Should I be serious or write about something fun?

She said something fun since it was the New Year.

Welp, my bad, Ally.

But I'll be back here on Monday. Remember that Unrivaled starts that day, so there's a good chance you'll have something in your inbox about it Monday morning.

Until then, have a great weekend.

I love you awesome nerds.