The Communication Barrier: How Women are Less Likely to Commentate Sports in

Comparison to Men

By: Madelyn Mendoza

Sports. I’m sure everyone can tell you of at least one sport they like to watch or play.

However, do you ever truly stop to think about how you are receiving information for the

sporting events you chose to partake in? Are the people who are relaying this information to you

primarily male or female? Do you see males covering the more masculine sports while the

females cover the more femine sports? My goal with the purpose of my final paper is to educate

everyone reading on the real reason that men are more likely to commentate on sports than

women are.

Before I begin on the real issue at hand, I would like to first discuss with you why I chose this

topic of study for my final paper. This general topic of women in sports has always been a huge

concept of interest for me growing up. I have known from a very young age that I was different

from most girls in my school or class because I had an extensive knowledge of all things sports.

This love and desire to know all I could about sports continued to develop as I continued to grow

up and make my way into higher education. I played 5 varsity letter sports all four years of

highschool and even had several offers to compete on the collegiate level.

However, I have now learned that my happiest place has actually been shown to me here at

Angelo State by playing intramural sports and working as a sports commentator for RamTV

Sports. This opportunity that I have been given not only has expressed my extreme amounts of

gratitude towards the career field that I deeply treasure with my whole being, but has also made

me realize that there are serious inconsistencies within the career field in which I have chosen to

pursue. I feel as though it my duty and understanding as not only an individual in this class but
also as a young woman advocating for women in sports to formally educate my audience on the

issue of not having enough female representation in sports but more importantly in the world of

sports commentating. Some questions I will be exploring through the course of this paper are as

follows: Why are most sports commentated by males?, What are the main reasons that females

don’t commentate sports?, and the last question I hope to answer is What aspects of social media

affect the way that males and females commentate and relate to sports?

I feel it is safe to mention that there are psychological and societal issues that prevent a woman

from getting hired to broadcast sports as well as a man could, especially when it comes to certain

sports geared towards masculinity. With this being said, I would like to turn to my first scholarly

journal which is entitled, “ Gender Sports Disclosure: Comparing the Language Choice on

Single-Sex Sports Panels.” Cam Newton gave a press conference on October 4th 2017 in which

he said and I quote, “ It’s funny to hear a female talk about routes…” This quote given by the

NFL player really struck a nerve to me because I don’t believe that it is weird to hear women talk

about football routes, in fact I think it is perfectly normal. The article continues to go on and say

that even with the rising numbers, females will probably always be considered the outsiders in

the world of sports communication. The article also discusses that females will almost always be

stuck in the supporting roles that will give sex appeal to an audience and therefore make a male

professional athlete seem like an expert on the topic at hand. This article also describes the

overall language barrier that male and female sport’s commentators. The use of powerless

language is what was being studied between the two genders and according to the article,

powerless language is what is perceived by the human brain and our natural body language. In

short, this article proves that overall a panel of full female sports commentators is less likely to

use powerless language in regard to the males who seem to overly use this language. I would like
to add that this is the way that I have interpreted this article and that others may have interpreted

this in a totally different light. ( Lambertz-Berndt, M., & Ryalls, E. D. (2019). Gendered Sports

Discourse: Comparing Language Choice on Single-Sex Sports Panels. Florida Communication

Journal, 47(2), 41–55. )

Since I have discussed the nonverbal and verbal communication barrier between male and

female sports commentators, I would like to discuss the current ratio of male to female sports

commentators. The current ratio is 78 percent to 17 percent. 17 percent being the female number

is outstanding to me and what surprised me even more was that the number of women of color

who commentate on sports is even lower. In my next journal article entitled, “ “Breaking glass

ceiling wasn't without pitfalls” Women now play a prominent role on the front line of TV

coverage, but as Sally Jones, the first female sports reporter on BBC Breakfast News, recalls it

was a tough battle to break down the gates to male-dominated world,” I have learned more on the

history aspect as to why women are just now starting to gain a more prominent influence in the

world of sports commentating. The article discusses the general history of women's sports

commentators starting with the first sports commentator Elanor Olroyd in the 90’s. The article

also discusses how male commentators grilled the female commentators on if females were

really cut out for this job and other female coordinators only talked about clothes and boyfriends.

The article closes with discussing the trials and tribulations that most women faced in sports over

the years and how women finally did earn their place in the industry. (‘Breaking glass ceiling

wasn’t without pitfalls.’ (2019, May 16). PressReader. https://www.pressreader.com/uk/the-

daily-telegraph/20190516/282553019690903)

The next article I am going to be discussing is entitled, “The Credibility of Female Sports

Broadcasters: The Perception of Gender in a Male-Dominated Profession.” This paper uses

credibility in the world of sports commentating. Interviews were conducted between both groups

and it was found that there were in fact opposite reactions in regards to the question on if there

was a basis between the two options of credibility given to male or female sports commentators.

However, and based on some speculation from outside sources, an alternate information survey

was conducted and the results proved to show that both genders seemed to be equally

knowledgeable on the subjects they were going to have to cover as well as credible. Throughout

the course of examining this article, it was stated that 85 percent of the women in sports feel as

though they are not seen as equals due to their gender which is totally understandable. Authority

also played a huge role in the aspect of credibility when looking at the way people view the

credibility of the genders, especially because females are not seen to be as authoritative as males.

Overall, and throughout the working experiment, 181 subjects were tested with more females

beginning in the test than males. Most women who were interviewed all agreed that appearance

played a part in the way the credibility is perceived which is a reason that most are put on the

sidelines. ( Gunther, A., Kautz, D., & Roth, A. (2011). The Credibility of Female Sports

Broadcasters: The Perception of Gender in a Male-Dominated Profession. Human

Communication, 14(2), 71–84. )

Now that I have discussed the credibility and the aspects of why it was challenged for both

males and females, I would now like to talk about how the different genders use social media to

their advantage and the platforms that are most prevalent to them. In the article entitled, “ He

Said, She Said: An Exploration of Male and Female Print Sports Journalist Tweets, Sports

Coverage, and Language Style, “ we see a look into the way social media affects the world

around us as well as the industry we work in. From the very beginning of this article, we learn
that males and females tweet statistically at the same time. However, with this fact being known,

males are more likely to tweet about sports as a whole instead of females who generally tweet

about females and female minded sports. The article also mentions the most easily accessible and

social media platform that has kind of taken over the world of sports journalism and that social

media outlet is Twitter. Twitter is giving the industry a real time look at what is going on in the

world of sports and is getting it out to millions of people the second it happens in comparison to

hours if you are waiting on a formal news release. However, over the course of a two week

conducted study, less that 5 percent of tweets were centered around women’s sports and female

athletes. The main study of this article looks at two very well known individuals in the sports

commentary industry, Erin Andrews and Kirk Herbstreit. The tweets between these two

individuals have shown that both of these individuals have conformed to their gender stereotypes

in the world. Erin was more inclined to tweet about her feelings while Kirk was more inclined to

tweet sports based content all of the time 24/7. Research for this article also showed that men use

more assertive language in their tweets and females use more afflitave language in the tweets

based on how we naturally talk and perceive information. Overall, it has shown that Twitter has

seemingly leveled the playing field for female broadcasters and has provided an outlet that is free

from the overall traditional constraints that the world has left for us to navigate on our own time

and perceptions. ( Abisaid, J. L., & Li, B. (2020). He Said, She Said: An Exploration of Male

and Female Print Sports Journalist Tweets, Sports Coverage, and Language Style.

Communication & Sport, 8(6), 757–781.)

Now that we all know how social media plays a part in the way that sports are viewed as a

whole, I think it is now time to talk about the elephant in the room in the world of sports. That

elephant is sexualization and visual objectification of women and men in the world of sports. In
the article entitled, “ "Elevator Eyes" in Sports Broadcasting: Visual Objectification of Male and

Female Sports Reporters,” we see how the audiences that watch sports are affected by the

objectification of women and males in the world of sports. The main research of this article is

how affected viewers are in terms of bodies as well as shapes of faces in the genders. Through

the objectification theory, we see that women’s bodies have always been perceived as sexual

objects. This claim has been backed up based on the eye tracking theory which in turn shows that

there was a huge gender ratio between male and females in regards to how long they look at their

bodies in comparison to the faces of these reporters. (Cummins, R. G., Ortiz, M., & Rankine, A.

(2019). “Elevator Eyes” in Sports Broadcasting: Visual Objectification of Male and Female

Sports Reporters. Communication & Sport, 7(6), 789–810.)

So I guess it is time for me to try and wrap this thing all together. In short, I would like to say

that this assignment has really opened my eyes to my industry and the challenges that I am going

to be facing once I hopefully hit the big leagues. I hope these issues are a little more resolved

before I get there but I hope to pave the way for change in my own unique ways. Throughout the

course of this paper my questions have been answered in adequate detail and have given me light

and clarity on a subject I was so eager to learn about. This class has taught me to not only

examine the world around me but to also look inside of my self to figure out the gender

communication issues I find more valuable than the others It has taught me how to talk to other

people and understand that there are significant differences between males and females that even

I didn’t know about. Thank you for your time.

Works Cited
( Abisaid, J. L., & Li, B. (2020). He Said, She Said: An Exploration of Male and Female Print

Sports Journalist Tweets, Sports Coverage, and Language Style. Communication & Sport, 8(6),

757–781.)

(‘Breaking glass ceiling wasn’t without pitfalls.’ (2019, May 16). PressReader.

https://www.pressreader.com/uk/the-daily-telegraph/20190516/282553019690903)

(Cummins, R. G., Ortiz, M., & Rankine, A. (2019). “Elevator Eyes” in Sports Broadcasting:

Visual Objectification of Male and Female Sports Reporters. Communication & Sport, 7(6),

789–810.)

( Gunther, A., Kautz, D., & Roth, A. (2011). The Credibility of Female Sports Broadcasters: The

Perception of Gender in a Male-Dominated Profession. Human Communication, 14(2), 71–84. )

( Lambertz-Berndt, M., & Ryalls, E. D. (2019). Gendered Sports Discourse: Comparing

Language Choice on Single-Sex Sports Panels. Florida Communication Journal, 47(2), 41–55. )