Usually I try not to get too involved with stuff that stays from the territory of college football when I'm writing these entries. But surfing around over on Sports Illustrated's website, I came across an article by Aditi Kinkhabwala about how women's athletics doesn't need sex to sell the sports, they need female athletes who "transcend the sex appeal" and make people WANT to watch. She may be right about the sex thing....I thought Anna Kournikova was great, but I was never going to go out of my way and watch a womens tennis match just to see her. But at the same time, I think Kinkhabwala is missing the main point: the reason that nobody wants to watch female sports is because there is a better alternative: their male counterparts. Nobody wants to watch a woman play a sport when on a different channel there is a superior athlete doing it better.
The best example of this is evident in the NBA and it's sister league, the WNBA. I still get a little pissed off when I'm forced to sit through "highlights" that show fast-breaks punctuated by sweet layups, or when they throw an alley-oop pass that isn't ooped because only two people in the league can even get the ball over the rim. If you want a great article to read about this, I suggest you check out Bill Simmons' article about it over on ESPN. It's still one of my favorite reads, and he sums up the stupidity of the WNBA very well:
"I have no business criticizing someone else's hobbies. We all have dopey things we enjoy. Maybe I like playing video games with the Patriots and pretending I run the team. Maybe you enjoy watching women playing basketball at the highest possible level -- a level that could roughly be compared to "a good intramural game at a Division 2 college, only if nobody could jump or dunk" -- and find the WNBA strangely intoxicating."
The thing is, this isn't restricted to basketball. It's the easiest example because it is repeatedly forced down our throat by the NBA, which keeps hemorrhaging money to keep this charade (as Simmons correctly calls it) alive. It's across the board. Say that you have a son and daughter, the son plays baseball, the daughter softball. Let's go on to say that they have a game the same day, at the same time. Who's game do you attend? Don't feel bad if you thought of your son first. It's human nature. Why? Because nobody wants to watch slower, less athletic people do anything when there is a better product elsewhere. And that's not to say that women shouldn't play sports, or that they shouldn't be provided every opportunity a male gets. But every time someone bitches and moans about the lack of attention female athletics gets, it drives me nuts.
What I'm getting at is that this female athlete who transcends sex appeal, the one that Kinkhabwala talks about in her article? She doesn't exist. There isn't one female athlete dominant enough that I will make it a point to watch her. Until one steps up and plays (well) in a male professional league, I am going to continue to change the channel to something else. Kinkhabwala is right, sex doesn't always sell, and it's not going to influence me to watch an inferior product. Unfortunately for womens athletics, I'm the norm, not the exception.
What I'm getting at is that this female athlete who transcends sex appeal, the one that Kinkhabwala talks about in her article? She doesn't exist. There isn't one female athlete dominant enough that I will make it a point to watch her. Until one steps up and plays (well) in a male professional league, I am going to continue to change the channel to something else. Kinkhabwala is right, sex doesn't always sell, and it's not going to influence me to watch an inferior product. Unfortunately for womens athletics, I'm the norm, not the exception.
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