THE INVISIBLE WOMAN?
A comparative study of women's sports coverage
in the UK national press before and after the 2012
Olympic Games
Deirdre O’Neill and Matt Mulready
While the coverage of women’s sport in UK media rises to
comparable levels to that of men’s sports during big sporting events
like the Olympics, academics agree that “routine” women’s sports
coverage is under-represented. According to the Women’s Sport and
Fitness Foundation, “81% of people think that the female athletes at
London 2012 make better role models for young girls than other
celebrities.” This article examines the representation of women in
sport and compares routine coverage of women’s sports in the UK
national press across a week in February 2012, six months before
the London Olympics, with coverage in a week in February 2013, six
months after the Olympics, to see if there has been an Olympic
“legacy” that increased coverage. It also examines coverage at the
same time of year a decade earlier, to see how far, if at all, women’s
sports coverage in newspapers has progressed. The results suggest
that there has been minimal change in everyday coverage of
women’s sports after the Olympics, and that female athletes
continue to be hugely under-represented in the UK press.
KEYWORDS coverage; equality; gender; journalism; newspapers;
Olympics; representation; sportswomen;
Introduction
London’s successful staging of the 2012 Olympics demonstrated
that there was a real appetite amongst the public for women’s sports. In
the wake of the Games, the (then) Culture and Equalities Minister Maria
Miller wrote to broadcasters to congratulate them on their coverage, but
asked that they give more prominence to women’s sports coverage
(Wright, Independent, September 15, 2012). Under the headline “Keep the
spotlight on girls in sport” (Sun, September 16, 2012), Clare Balding called
for “equal coverage for women in press and on telly”. The sports
presenter wrote, “At the moment, women’s sport doesn’t get the
coverage, so it doesn’t get commercial support, so it can’t gain an
audience.” Less than a year before the London Olympics, the Commission
on the Future of Women's Sport produced a report showing that
sponsorship of women's elite sport in the UK amounted to just 0.5% of the
total market between January 2010 and August 2011 (Gibson, Guardian,
November 5, 2011).
1
In 2006 the Women’s Sports and Fitness Foundation (WSFF) found
that women’s sport received just 5% of coverage (see WSFF website and
Peacock, Daily Telegraph, October 24, 2012). The Foundation called for
increased media coverage that reflects the growing demand for women's
sport. Eight years on, this study seeks to find out whether female sport is
now better represented. Much has changed since then. Many
sportswomen and women’s teams are highly successful, even in sports
traditionally dominated by men. In women’s rugby, England won an
impressive seven successive Six Nations crowns (between 2006-2012).
The national women’s cricket team won the 2009 World Cup; England’s
women’s football team has qualified for the FIFA Women's World Cup three
times, reaching the quarter final stage on each occasion (1995, 2007 and
2011). And most significantly, London has hosted the 2012 London
Olympics, where female Olympians won 11 gold medals. Why would the
public not welcome these female sporting achievements being given a
high profile?
The Olympic legacy has been high on the UK government’s agenda
(BBC, August 12, 2012). Besides economic regeneration, part of this
legacy, according to the Department of Culture, Media and Sport’s
website, should be that the public are inspired to participate in sport and
adopt a healthier lifestyle. And given the UK’s celebrity-saturated and
sexualised culture, young women arguably need positive role models
more than ever.
The 2006 WSFF report looked at a range of media, both
broadcasting and print. However, since media is not entirely
homogeneous, this study focusses on newspapers, and asks to what
extent is women’s sport marginalised in the UK national press, where the
sports pages, at least on the face of it, appear to present a football-
saturated “boyzone”? Has much changed since the 2012 home Olympics?
And, using semi-structured interviews with journalists and media
personalities, the study considers the underlying reasons why women’s
sport tends to be undervalued. Are there more complex reasons than
simple blind prejudice and sexism?
Literature review
Certainly a great deal of academic literature supports the notion that
women’s sport is marginalised in the media. Scraton and Flintoff (2002),
Gilbert (2005), Raney and Bryant (2006), and Boyle and Haynes (2009)
agree that female sport and its participants are under-represented.
Brookes (2002, 128) claims that in general terms, studies on gendered
sports coverage shows that everyday coverage of women’s sport amounts
to less than 10 per cent of total coverage, though he notes that this
moves nearer to equal coverage when big events like the Olympic Games
are covered. “But in a way the extra attention on such occasions as the
Olympic Games only serves to reinforce the message.” (ibid). A more
recent study of UK Sunday newspapers suggests that Brookes’s figure of
less than 10% is wildly optimistic: data from five Sunday papers over a
two-year period averaged just 3.6% for routine coverage of women’s
2
sports (Godoy-Pressland, 2014). Furthermore, when female sport is
covered by the media, female participation may be sexualised or
trivialised (Choi, 2000; Brookes, 2002; Aitchison, 2007; and Magee et al,
2008).
Women make up half the population, so in terms of equality it
seems curious to be downplaying the achievements of so many, while
denying audiences the pleasure of what could be, if the Olympics can
serve as any benchmark, great sporting performances. Second, female
sports coverage provides strong role models for girls. This is particularly
important when considering the wider social factors that Whannel (2008,
84-85) points out can act as barriers to female participation in sport:
notions of femininity linked to passiveness; the myth of feminine frailty;
an education system that treats boys and girls differently; sporting
facilities often designed without consideration of female participants;
fewer women involved in sports organisations - and consequently less
involved in policy making; and women usually having the greatest burden
when it comes to childcare, meaning they have less spare time for leisure
and sports pursuits.
With the rise of childhood obesity, it can be argued that all children
– whatever their gender – should be encouraged to adopt a love of healthy
sporting activity they can take into adulthood. Research by the University
of California has found that teenage obesity has more impact on increased
blood pressure in girls than boys (BBC, October 14, 2011). Taking up an
activity proves more difficult for girls if they are not exposed to female
role models. According to the WSFF, there is a crisis in women's sport (see
website for 2011/12 Annual Review, March 31, 2012); 80% of women are
not active enough to remain healthy; girls leave school half as active as
young men; there are too few women in senior positions on sports'
governing bodies, and the potential of top sportswomen as inspiring role
models is not being harnessed.
Writing about the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Guardian journalist Kira
Cochrane noted the vital role of the Olympics for women and pondered
whether those Olympics would lead to a general increase in women’s
sports: “Olympic events have always been important to female spectators,
partly because we see so little women’s sports the rest of the time.”
(Guardian, August 12, 2008). Daily Mail sports reporter Martha Kelner
believes “a lot of young teenage girls drop out of sport because of peer
pressure; it is seen as uncool and unfeminine to do sport. The media have
a part to play, in that they value male sporting achievements more than
female.” (Interview by email, April 30, 2013). This view is shared by the
WSFF (Peacock, Daily Telegraph, October 24, 2012). “Currently we have
a…..prevailing culture where girls grow up wanting to be thin rather than
active and healthy.”
Brookes (2002, 128-130) identifies a series of issues arising from
existing literature about media coverage of men’s and women’s sport:
stereotypical assumptions are made about what is “male-appropriate” and
“female-appropriate” (Brookes, 2002, 128). For example, women’s rugby
is likely to get less coverage than gymnastics. Women’s sports may be
marked as “other”, as in Messner, Duncan and Jensen’s 1993 study of TV
3
coverage of basketball: the sport was referred to as “basketball” when
played by men but as “women’s basketball” when played by women,
marking out women’s sports as unusual (in Brookes, 2002, 129).
Sportswomen may be sexualised or infantilised, often labelled as “girls” or
called by their first names, or their achievements trivialised (ibid, 130).
Like other cultural pursuits, it is important to understand the
manner in which sport and its depiction, usually in the media, reproduces
or challenges male hegemony in wider society. Dunning (1999),
Carrington and McDonald (2001), Houlihan (2003) and Kirk et al (2006),
influenced by Gramscian analysis, offer sport as the last male bastion
where men can dominate women. Theberge (2000, 323) highlights the
work of Susan Cahn and suggests that beneath the surface of the debate
about women’s athleticism was the “nagging question of power” (Cahn,
1994, 208). Brookes (2002, 130) believes it is important to grasp the
concept of “hegemonic masculinity” in society, since it underpins much of
the research around sports and gender. He highlights the work of Connell
(1995) who argues that male hegemony exists as a cultural ideal that can
only exist in contrast with femininity. In defining it in opposition to
femininity, hegemonic masculinity works to legitimise the subordination of
women, and to marginalise other manifestations of masculinity that
deviate from this masculine ideal, including gay men. In contrast, the
concept of femininity is not constructed in an oppositional or dominant
way to the other sex. As already mentioned, the feminist critique of sports
journalism, in particular photography, is that women are presented as
sexualised or as subordinate. Studies from the 1980s and 1990s
demonstrate sexualised depictions of sportswomen that mask their elite
athletic status (Heaven and Rowe, 1990, in Rowe, 1999, 128). However,
sportswomen may use this to their advantage. As Rowe points out,
sportswomen will often seek to capitalise on the commercial advantage
that such a profile can provide, appearing on magazine covers, posters
and publicity shots. In 2012 Jessica Ennis appeared on magazine front
covers (for example, Podium magazine, April 2012) and in advertisements
(see Olay advertisement in, for example, Glamour magazine, 2012) and
many of the female gold medallists appeared in the press after the London
Games dressed glamorously, emphasising their femininity. In an article on
glamour in sport, (London) Times journalist Simon Barnes makes some
interesting points about female athletes: “You can win glamorously or
unglamorously as personality dictates. But if you want to pull off the win-
double of sporting success and wealth, then a woman must do glamour as
well as victory….I’m not entirely comfortable with that...It is never the
woman that is demeaned in such transactions. It is always the client. Us.”
(Times, February 24, 2012).
Nor do men necessarily escape – or seek to escape - this sexualised
depiction: one just has to think about photoshoots of David Beckham. And
Hargreaves and McDonald (2000, 55) acknowledge that women can
collude in this process of sexualisation and male hegemony – high jumper
Yelena Isinbayeva said in a Times interview that female athletes have a
“duty to be beautiful” (Broadbent in Barnes, Times, February 24, 2012) -
4
and that the situation is more complex than a simple male versus female
opposition.
Whatever the current situation, women in the past, have had to
battle with preconceptions arising out of a patriarchal society in order to
participate more fully in a sporting life. Sport was generally seen as
strictly a male orientated activity, created by men for men (Yiannakis and
Melnick, 2001; Tomlinson et al, 2002) and suggesting that sport required
physical and psychological attributes “unnatural to women” provided a
useful means to control women in a male-dominated society such as
Victorian England (Mangan, 2006, 146).
Nevertheless, there were serious challenges to these attitudes. The
first female football match was played in 1895 and, according to Williams
(2003), Britain pioneered the first phase of women’s football around the
time of the First World War, when British women’s football led the world.
The eminent women’s team, Dick Kerr Ladies, played to audiences of tens
of thousands, not just at home but oversees. “The considerable spectator
support and media interest from that period is noticeably absent from the
present” (Williams, 2003, 4). Yet despite this success, by 1921 The
Football Association had banned women’s football from Football League
grounds, effectively marginalising the sport on the grounds it was
unsuitable for women (Kassouf, 2011). It took the FA 50 years to lift this
ban and a further 37 years to apologise in 2008 (Murray, 2010).
Despite the fact that the founder of the modern Olympic Games,
Pierre de Coubertin, said women should be spectators rather than
participants (Gems and Pfister, 2009), the Paris 1900 Olympic Games saw
the first female competitors, with 19 participants
(Mallon and Heijmans, 2011). However, women were not allowed to run
further than 800 metres in the Games until 1972; the first women’s 3000
metres, 400 metres hurdles and marathon were in 1984; and women were
barred from the pole vault and throwing the hammer until 2000 (Whannel,
2008, 224). Female participation rose to over four thousand by the Sydney
Olympics in 2000 and nearly 5000 in the London 2012 Olympics. Yet it
took until London 2012 for all 204 nations to be represented by athletes
from both genders. Wodjan Shaherkani made history by being the first
female Saudi Arabian Olympian when she competed in the judo contest,
while Qatar and Brunei entered female athletes for the first time.
According to the Guardian, 36% of all Team GB medals were won by
female athletes (Rodgers, August 9, 2012).
So women are no longer on the sidelines of sport, they are breaking
through into sports that were previously seen as solely appropriate for
male involement. Hartman-Tews and Pfister (2003), O’Reilly and Cahn
(2007) and Cashmore (2010) suggest that increased female participation
and performance has begun to challenge men in sport, possibly
threatening the status quo. Whannel (2008, 84) argues that sport is still
dominated by masculine values but that advances in women’s sports,
both in terms of numbers taking part and in the standards of performance,
are challenging notions that women’s sports are in some way inferior to
men’s. Yet on the face of it, sexism – either direct or indirect - appears to
be a regular occurrence in sport and this, together with its coverage (or
5
lack of it) would seem to chime with academic concepts about dominant
gender roles.
Prior to the Olympics, a number of events brought the issue of
gender equality in sport to the fore. In January 2011, sports commentators
Andy Gray and Richard Keys were fired from Sky Sports after making
sexist remarks about a female assistant referee Sian Massey and West
Ham vice-chairman Karren Brady. This was no isolated incident: ex-
Manchester City manager Joe Royle and ex-Luton manager Mike Newell
have both previously aired their views about female officials. In 2007
Luton boss Mike Newell was fined £6,500 by the Football Association over
his comments regarding female assistant referee Amy Rayner the
previous November. Newell said after the match with QPR that the
appointment of women referees was “tokenism for the politically-correct
idiots”. (BBC, February 13, 2007). Just for good measure he added, “She
should not be here. I know that sounds sexist, but I am sexist.” (Culf,
Guardian, November 13, 2006). Following the Gray and Keys affair, insult
was added to injury in December 2011 when, astonishingly, no female
sports stars were nominated for the BBC Sports Personality of the Year
award.
Despite the female England football team’s impressive 6-0 win over
Croatia (qualifying campaign match for the 2013 European
Championships on April 5, 2012) , only the Observer and the Sunday
Express covered the result. On the same day as Balding’s article appeared
in the Sun (September 16, 2012), Private Eye pointed out that the same
paper made no mention of the England’s women’s cricket team beating
the West Indies (an unbeaten run of 21 matches) nor the British Women’s
Open, the only major championship in ladies golf to be held in this country
(Private Eye, September 21–October 4, 2012). So, on the face of it, there
appears to be inequality in the media coverage of male and female sport,
despite the enormous growth and success of women’s sport over the last
three decades. It is important to investigate the real picture since media
coverage and representation have the power to reinforce or challenge
outmoded relations, stereotypes and even prejudices, as well as providing
encouragement to other women. Given Clare Balding’s and Maria Miller’s
endeavours to keep female sport in the public eye post-Olympics, this
article compares the amount of coverage of female sport and sports
women in the UK press six months before the London Olympics (which
started on Friday July 27, 2012, and ended Sunday August 12, 2012) and
returns to look at newspaper coverage six months after the Olympics to
see if there has been any effect in increasing “routine” coverage of
women in sport. In addition, the amount of newspaper coverage given to
women’s sports 10 years before the London Olympics was also recorded
to see if there had been any improvement in routine coverage across the
last decade. Finally, sports journalists were interviewed for their views on
the findings and on female sports coverage in general.
Methodology
The main focus of the study was to examine the main national UK
newspapers in the period six months before the 2012 London Olympics
6
and six months following the 2012 Olympics to establish if there was any
difference in the number (quantity) of female-related sports stories. Given
the interest that the London Olympics generated in female sports and
sportswomen, this study aimed to discover whether there was at least a
possible short-term increased effect on the amount of coverage, which
might bode well for a longer-lasting legacy. It is, of course, recognised,
that this study is limited to a snapshot of the state of play, and that future
studies would need to be conducted further away from the 2012 Olympics
to ascertain any lasting influence on women’s sports coverage. Seven UK
national newspapers, and their Sunday equivalents, were used in this
study, covering a range of political allegiances and readerships. These
were the Daily and Sunday Telegraph (part of the Telegraph Media Group
and owned by brothers David and Frederick Barclay); the Guardian and
Observer (part of the Guardian Media Group and owned by the Scott Trust
Ltd) and the Times and Sunday Times (part of News Week, owned by
Rupert Murdoch), representing the quality press. The Daily Mail and Mail
on Sunday (part of the Daily Mail and General Trust PLC, a company that
has Lord Rothermere as chair and controlling shareholder), along with the
Daily and Sunday Express (part of the Express Group, a subsidiary of
Northern and Shell, which is wholly owned by Richard Desmond)
representing mid-market titles, and the Sun and Sun on Sunday (also part
of News Week and owned by Murdoch) and the Daily and Sunday Mirror
(part of the Trinity Mirror Group plc), representing the red-tops. The study
focussed on the sports pages, but if any sports coverage appeared
elsewhere in the paper, this was noted, though this was found to be
negligible, with the exception of the occasional photograph and caption.
The prominence of stories covering women’s sports was also noted.
Since the intention was to compare like with like, the last full week
of February in each year was examined (Wed-Tues inclusive). The week-
long period six months before the London Olympics was February 22 - 28,
2012, while the period six months after was February 20 – 26, 2013. In
addition, a week’s worth of the same papers were examined in the same
way from February 20 – 26, 2002 (substituting the News of the World for
the Sun on Sunday, which was not published in 2002) to measure any
changes in reporting in women’s sports coverage over the previous
decade.
Before embarking on the main study, a pilot content analysis was
conducted, which focused on two days of coverage of sports articles in
two of the sample newspapers (the Times and the Daily Mirror), to see
how relevant stories were presented, whether to include only lead stories,
and to establish a clear definition of what constitutes a sports article. From
the pilot, for the purposes of this study an article was defined as
containing some text about the sport. Fixtures and match score results
were not included, although match reports were. Sports supplements were
also included. The decision was made to record all articles (including
news in briefs) because the pilot revealed that many articles about
women were extremely short. If only lead articles were included, the
results would have been even lower. The brevity of many articles about
women’s sports as seen in the pilot study also led us to believe that if
7
column inches were recorded the results were likely to be lower and we
wanted to ensure the study captured all mention of women’s sports, no
matter how minimal. The number of stories relating to women’s sports
was calculated and recorded as a percentage of the total number of sports
stories. Percentages were rounded up to the nearest 0.5%. In total, 4,576
articles before and after the Olympics were recorded; this number
increased to 7,107 when articles from February 2002 were also included.
There was originally an assumption that the Olympics would have
minimal effects on the results six months beforehand, but counter
intuitively, the pilot study revealed that a few stories were already linked
to this major event in six months’ time, often discussing athletes’
preparation and potential. Similarly, towards the end of February 2002,
the Winter Olympics were taking place in Salt Lake City. Thus, for 2013,
2012 and 2002, the results were recorded including all articles relating to
both Games, and noting the effect on women’s sports coverage, and
subsequently excluding any articles relating to the Olympics, to record
routine coverage. However, in 2013 there were no stories directly about
the Olympics (unsurprisingly, since they had finished), though the Games
were sometimes given a passing reference within an article, so two sets of
results did not need to be recorded for 2013.
In many of the stories, women were mentioned along with men or
just in passing (and in these instances 0.5 of a story was recorded). There
were a couple of pictures and short gossipy items about footballers wives
(like Victoria Beckham) but as these were not about sport they were not
recorded either as sports articles or as being about women athletes.
Once the data had been collected, we carried out semi-structured
interviews with four sports journalists. These were former Young Sports
Journalist of the Year, Martha Kelner of the Daily Mail, one of the few
female sports writers on the national press; Sue Mott, one of the earliest
women to be appointed as a sports writer on a UK national newspaper;
Oliver Kay, chief football correspondent for the Times; and Tanni Grey-
Thompson, former paralympian and sports broadcaster and campaigner. It
was made clear to interviewees that they would be named in the article,
and in two cases the selected quotes to be included were provided to
interviewees who requested that they see what was going to be
published, and they provided agreement to allow publication by email.
Questions about the coverage of women’s sport were also put to Stuart
Rowson, BBC Sports Editor Interactive. Thus we attempted to canvass
male and female views on our results, as well as recent and pioneering
journalists, and relevant responses were included at appropriate points in
the article, mainly under the heading, Discussion of Findings.
Findings
All the findings are presented as percentages of all articles covering sports
on sports pages. All percentages have been rounded up to nearest half a
per cent. In February 2013 just one set of figures is provided since there
were no articles focussing exclusively on the Olympics (see Table 1). The
results are also presented in a bar chart (see Figure 1).
8
[Table 1 here]
[Figure 1 here]
The results show that average coverage of women in sport is less
than 5% of total sport’s coverage for any of the years analysed. There has
been little change in more than 10 years, with the fact that the London
Olympics has taken place merely bringing the results nearly up to the
average in 2002 when the Winter Olympics was taking place. However, if
a major event like the Olympics (Winter or Summer) is put aside, then
there appears to have been an increase of 3% (from 1% to 4%) before and
after the London Olympics, and an increase of 2% from 2002 (2%) to 2013
(4%). Whether this slow upwards trend is permanent remains to be seen,
and will need follow-up studies over longer periods of times and more
remote from the London Olympics in terms of elapsed time. But however
the results are viewed, coverage of women’s sports has not changed
significantly in more than a decade.
Prominence and photographs
Women appeared in about 2% of photographs, and never made a lead
story on the sports pages, but on 22nd February 2013 victorious women
cyclists were featured in a large front-page picture with a caption in the
Times and the Daily Telegraph, referring readers to the main coverage on
the sports pages. The cyclists also made the back (lead) page of the
Guardian sports pages (but as the second story) on the same day. This
trend appears to have continued in some of the quality papers: for
example, a photograph of victorious female cricketers (England won the
NatWest Women’s Ashes series) featured on the front page of the Times
on August 20, 2013. But what is apparent is that this only happens in
victorious circumstances; women only get prominent coverage when they
are winners. Routinely, they still get little or no coverage. But limited as
they are, routine photographs of women athletes are not particularly
sexualised these days; there was no evidence of pictures in the style of
one report from the News of the World in 2002, which depicted a scantily
clad female cyclist showing off her “boob job”.
Discussion of results
Despite females making up half the population, the amount of media
coverage of female sports and stars recorded over the given periods was
incredibly low (between 3% and 5%; and even lower when the Olympics
were excluded: between 1% and 4%). Our research shows little has really
changed over a decade, confirming O’Reilly and Cahn’s (2007) claim that
sports media remain one of the last bastions of male domination. Nor has
there been much change since the 2006 findings of the Women Sports
and Fitness Foundation (see WSFF website and Peacock, Daily Telegraph,
October 24, 2012), when women’s sports coverage in all media was found
9
to be just under 5%, close to the average 2013 findings (4%) in this study.
The WSFF looked at a greater range of media, though fewer newspapers,
albeit for a longer period (a month). The organisation also analysed local
papers, where coverage was routinely higher for women’s sports, and this
possibly contributed to the slightly higher overall average of around 5%.
In 2002 a total of 2,531 articles were analysed. The total average in
all papers of women’s sport coverage stood at just 5%. Even more
depressing is that without the Winter Olympics coverage, where women
were the main GB medal winners, women’s sport coverage was just 2%.
In 2012 a total of 2,321 articles were analysed. The overall average
went down to just 3%. Even with London 2012 just around the corner, the
media failed to shift their news agenda to help build the female profile,
despite it being a home Olympics, an Olympics that was promoted on the
grounds it could inspire the next generation of athletes, as well as
widening sports participation amongst the general population. When
articles referencing the London Olympics were omitted to focus on routine
reporting of female sports, this coverage stood at a mere 1%.
In 2013 a total of 2,255 articles were analysed. The total average
went up to 4%; an improvement, but from a very low baseline. The
findings clearly show that despite constituting half the adult population,
women in sport have failed to make significant inroads onto the news
agendas of national newspapers. The average percentage of coverage
actually fell over a decade, between 2002 (4.5%) and 2012 (3%)/2013
(4%). This is especially disappointing given the fact that London has
successfully staged an Olympic Games, where women excelled. GB
women amassed a total of 36% of Team GB’s London 2012 medal haul.
Given this, they can no longer be portrayed as the “other sex”.
Arguably, women may no longer face the restrictions they once
confronted in participating in sport, and enjoy more opportunities, but it
would seem they are not being given the platform necessary to promote
female sport effectively. This lack of coverage effectively renders
women’s sport as barely- existent, which must impact on the public
perception, situating top sportswomen as outside the norm, views that in
2013 should be confined to the past.
Differences between newspapers
In general the quality papers were better than the mid-market or red-top
papers (the Telegraph is perhaps the exception) in the amount of
coverage they gave to female sports. At the very least, the Times/Sunday
Times and Guardian/Observer have increased their coverage since the
Olympics. It ought to be pointed out that with the exception of the Sun on
Sunday/News of the World, all the Sunday papers had increased their
women’s sports coverage, and that the Observer and Sunday Times both
had 8.5% of articles devoted to women’s sport (as opposed to 4% in 2002
for the Observer; and 3% in 2002 for the Sunday Times). The Sunday
papers were marginally better than the daily papers but it is a matter of
between 0.5% and 2%, which is hardly noticeable to the average reader.
10
The quality papers did give good coverage to the Track Cycling
World Championships at Minsk in February 2013, where women won gold
in both individual track events and team events, and this may have been
because of women’s cycling successes in the London Olympics. The
quality press also tended to do some long interviews with female athletes
(such as with pole vaulter Holly Bleasdale in the Guardian on February 26,
2013) and the Times ran three stories about curling on its news (not
sports) pages on February 26, 2002 after the women’s curling team won a
gold at the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics. Overall, in 2013, the
Guardian/Observer (at 8%) and Times/Sunday Times (at 6%) gave the best
coverage, followed by the Mail/Mail on Sunday (at 4%).
Bottom of the league post-Olympics were the red-tops and Express
newspapers. The Sun/News of the World/Sun on Sunday was the worst
offender in 2013 at 1.5% (and averaged 1.5% over the three years
sampled); the Express/ Sunday Express devoted just 2% of coverage to
women’s sports in 2013, while the Daily and Sunday Mirror achieved a
mere 2.5% of coverage in 2013. In 2012, when any reference to the
Olympics was excluded, the Express group did not manage to mention
women in any of the sports articles sampled.
The Telegraph/Sunday Telegraph also made for interesting reading.
In 2002, they were by far the most “accepting” of female sport, as their
coverage stood at 8.5% and double the average total (even without
Olympic coverage it was at 3.5%, higher than other newspapers).
However, in 2012, a decade later and six months before the Olympics
they seem to have changed their tack. They were now down at 2.5%. In
2013, six months after the London Olympics, women’s coverage went up
to 3%. So over a decade, the Telegraph, went from one of the best
performing newspapers to one of the worst.
The Times/Sunday Times seem to be the most positive towards
women’s sports coverage over the last decade. In 2002, the paper’s
coverage was 5th lowest out of the seven newspaper categories at 4%. In
2012, six months before the Olympics, the Times/Sunday Times went to
the top, producing 5.5% of women’s coverage (21/373). In direct contrast
to the Times/Sunday Times, the Express stable consistently went down. In
2002, their women’s coverage was at 4.5%, in 2012 it went down to 3.5%
and it further slumped to 2% in 2013. The Mail/Mail on Sunday also
demonstrated a downwards trend.
In contrast, the Times/Sunday Times amassed 3%, even without
Olympic coverage, again first out of all the newspaper groups, rising to 6%
six months after the Games in 2013. The Guardian/Observer jumped from
2.5% in 2012 to contain the most coverage of women’s sports in 2013 at
8.5%. While these figures are low, the Times and Guardian group are at
least showing an upwards trend.
No individual newspaper exceeded 8.5 % for women’s sports
coverage, which is rather shocking, given the successes at the (home)
Olympics. The average coverage of women’s sport for the seven
newspapers for any of the three years didn’t exceed 5%, which shows a
severe imbalance that has been present in the last decade and looks set
to remain.
11
Celebrity or sports role models?
Given the way in which women are usually depicted in the media, images
of skilled and successful sports women are more vital than ever. Writing in
the Guardian about the Beijing Olympics, Kira Cochrane (August 12, 2008)
celebrated the positive image that female athletes offered women:
The women we have been thrilling to [at Beijing] aren’t in our
eyeline because they happen to be the offspring of some 1970s
rocker, or because they’ve bagged a multimillionaire boyfriend.
They aren’t on screen because they have starved themselves to a
size zero – instead, their bodies are a celebration of strength.
Cochrane goes on to hope that the Olympic coverage of sportswomen will
leave a lasting legacy. And according to the WSFF, “81% of people think
that the female athletes at London 2012 make better role models for
young girls than other celebrities…However, we need to make sure that
young girls and women are given more opportunities to see their female
sports heroes in action to inspire them to get active.” (Peacock, Daily
Telegraph, October 24, 2012). However, such opportunities and legacy
have not materialised, if this study is representative. In February 2012, if
any Olympic coverage is excluded, routine coverage of sportswomen
averages just 1%. By 2013, after the London Olympics, coverage has, at
least, increased to an average of 4%, but this cannot be said to be very
significant, and shows no improvement on the WSFF findings of 2006
(ibid).
Why is there poor coverage?
So what is the reason for the lack of coverage? Sue Mott has been a sports
journalist for 30 years, and was one of the first women to report on sport
in a national newspaper (Sunday Times from 1986-1994). If women’s sport
is not as popular with audiences as men’s – and this may or may not be
the same as women’s sport not being as good as men’s - she points to
historic reasons, including past bans on women competing in the Olympics
or in football.
Men’s sport has completely dominated the calendar for the past 100
years or so: football, the Six Nations, major golf tournaments, F1
racing, boxing…..these block out the annual calendar.…There is far
less history, and [therefore less] folklore or myth attached to
modern women’s sport; there are fewer heroines.
(Interview by email, April 30, 2013.)
But for Oliver Kay, chief football correspondent on the Times,
women’s sport does not have to mean a second-rate experience.
Speaking about his Olympics memories, Kay said,
You’ll think I’m being politically correct, but I would say the highlight
in terms of anything I attended was the women’s match between
12
Great Britain and Brazil. ….it was a great moment for women’s
football.
(Interview by phone, April 9, 2013.)
But Kay acknowledges that women’s sport does not get equal treatment
in the “other 47 months out of a four-year cycle”.
As Balding says, a virtuous circle exists for male sports – if covered
in the media, the sport gets a high profile, thus receiving funding to
develop more. Both Sue Mott and former paralympian and sports
broadcaster Tanni Grey-Thompson agree that the media can’t be entirely
blamed and that part of the problem lies with sports organisations:
“Women’s sport can promote itself far better.” (Sue Mott, interview by
email, April 30, 2013). “Governing bodies could do a better job putting out
news about their female performers.” Grey-Thompson adds: “The
governing bodies have to make sure they use their female athletes,
making sure there is equal branding on their posters and tickets.”
(Interview by phone, June 13, 2013). Mott and Grey-Thompson also point
to a gendered power imbalance, with a preponderance of men on
newspapers, sports websites and governing bodies.
I think the reality is that most editors are men and football
dominates our culture in terms of sport. We need more female
involvement in all sectors. Jess Ennis has a female agent, but there
are not many of them.
(Grey-Thompson, interview by phone, June 13, 2013.)
Oliver Kay of the Times thinks the public also has to take some
responsibility for the current situation.
It is market driven; the media have an obligation to keep alive the
post-Olympic legacy of the promotion of women’s sport and minority
sport, but there is only so much blame they can be attached to the
media. People say they want to read about minority [and women’s]
sports, but the evidence simply isn’t there.
(Interview by phone, April 9, 2013.)
Stuart Rowson, Editor, BBC Sports Interactive (talk at Leeds Trinity
University, UK, February 25, 2013), also claimed that a lack of interest
from the public created a challenge for broadcasters. While he believed
the corporation should be leading the way in showcasing women’s sports,
he said the BBC had to strike a balance between covering women’s sports
– which he believes are not as popular – and sports such as football. While
the public will watch women’s sports during big events like the Olympics,
it can be difficult to engage as many viewers longer term. Nevertheless,
Rowson believed there had been some legacy at the BBC from the
Olympics: “Women’s cricket is not as popular as men’s cricket so we need
to educate people. We sent a woman to cover the Women’s Cricket World
Cup. We wouldn’t have done this before the Olympics.”
13
The dominance of football: reflecting or setting the agenda?
Both Kay and Grey-Thompson flagged up another issue: the dominance of
football, which in this study accounted for approximately 70% of press
coverage. On the Victoria Derbyshire programme (BBC R5 Live, January
10, 2013), Tim Lamb, Chief Executive of the Sport and Recreation Alliance,
acknowledged that the media reflected the huge popular interest in
football, but added that it hoovered up 90% of TV’s sports budget. “The
media also has a responsibility to help set the agenda, not just reflect the
reality,” he said, adding that he fully supported the need for increased
coverage of a greater range of sport. “We can’t go from a feast to a
famine every four years.” However, Sue Mott disagrees:
The media’s job is not to engineer society. They reflect interest and
sell themselves on the grounds of popularity. And you can hardly
blame humanity for not marching on News International and
demanding en masse more female sports coverage.
(Interview by email, 30th April 2013.)
Oliver Kay acknowledges that football coverage has increased, but also
points to reader demand:
The number of pages of sport has gone up overall. Football
dominates, at about 50% of the Times and probably around 70% for
the red-tops. The research shows it’s popular and adds to the
circulation figures.
(Interview by phone, April 9, 2013.)
And in terms of expenses, Kay argues that it’s even harder to justify
sending reporters to events that aren’t followed as avidly as football when
newspapers are struggling financially.
Missing a trick?
But given that interest is closely related to promotion – a chicken and egg
situation - Mott suggests that “some members of the media could decide
they’re missing a trick and start covering women’s sport” (interview by
email, April 30, 2013).
If it proves successful, other media outlets will follow and
international governing bodies will prick up their ears. The sound of
cascading money always has a salutary effect on the administrators.
(Ibid)
Interest and audiences can grow with investment and more
coverage; media outlets can build an audience. Jeff Stelling of Sky Sports
pointed to the rise in audiences for darts after Sky invested in and
promoted the sport (talk at Leeds Trinity University UK, February 25,
14
2013). There was also a telling quote in an article about pioneer female
motor racing driver Danica Patrick taking part in Nascar’s Daytona 500:
‘For ten years I have told Bernie [Ecclestone] he is dopey for not
getting a woman into Formula One,’ Niki Lauder, the three-times
world champion said. ‘If we could get a woman into the top six, you
would have twice as many fans in front of the television.’
(Eason, Times, February 23, 2013)
Female sports writers
While there is obviously a complex interplay of factors affecting the lack of
coverage of women’s sports, the dearth of female sports writers will be
exerting some influence on sports output. Andrews states that there are
now more female sports writers and presenters (2005, 78). While the
focus of this study was not on the gender of the journalists, it was noted
that the situation and opportunities for female sports writers remains
disappointing, with an average of 1.5% female bylines in 2013.
No women sports journalists were recorded in any editions of the
Daily and Sunday Express from any of the samples from any year. There
were no bylines by women in any editions of the Daily Mirror over the
periods examined. The Sunday Mirror carried two articles on football by a
woman 2012 but no female bylines were recorded in 2013, nor any in the
Sun or its Sunday equivalents after the Olympics.
In her study of the gender of bylines for different categories of
journalism in the UK national press, Franks (2013) found that sports
continued to be a field where “female bylines are pretty much invisible”,
and noted that in the UK in 2012, only two women were listed in the Press
Gazette Top 50 Sports Reporters (Press Gazette, 2012 in Franks, 2013, 28-
29). A more detailed study of the gender of bylines on the sports pages of
the UK national press found that more than 98% were male (Franks and
O’Neill, submitted for publication).
On a positive note, women sports writers in this study are not
confined to covering traditional women’s sports (such as tennis), though,
to be fair, in 2002 they were also covering sports such as football. The
Mail on Sunday has just appointed Alison Kervin as its first female sports
editor – the first on a national newspaper in the UK (Greenslade, Guardian,
March 20, 2013) - so it will be interesting to see what effect this has on
future coverage of women’s sports in this newspaper.
Green shoots of progress?
In 2012 women fared much better in nominations for Sports Personality of
the Year, reflecting their success in the London Olympics, with five female
nominations. Jessica Ennis finished second to Bradley Wiggins. A female
last won the award in 2006 (Zara Phillips). In many ways, broadcasters,
particularly the BBC, are making the most positive steps. There is now
more coverage of women’s cricket and football. BBC Director of Sport
15
Barbara Slater said the response to women’s football at London 2012
showed there is a strong appetite for it. It was also notable that ex-
England and Arsenal captain Faye White’s retirement announcement
featured prominently on the BBC Sport website.
Sue Mott (interview by email, April 30, 2013) is positive about
change: she points to the launch of BT’s new television channels –
“fronted by Clare Balding and openly promoting the best women’s sports
stories. BT has bought the rights to women’s tennis (worldwide) and
women’s club football in Britain”.
The “success” of women in sport has led to campaigns from
women’s magazines to keep this going. Zest women’s magazine ran a
“women in sport” campaign under #keepthemomentum (WSFF), while the
Stylist magazine’s “Fairgame” campaign aims to collect 100,000
signatures for its petition in six months. And in the future, social media
may hold the key. For example, the FA Women’s Super League launched
the Twitter kit initiative (BBC, April 4, 2012): female footballers will be the
first to wear their Twitter names on their shirts in the hope of increased
coverage (Williamson, Daily Mail, April 6, 2013).
Conclusion
In her book on the aftermath of feminism, McRobbie (2009) challenges
postfeminist theories, including the “commonsense” postfeminist
perception that claims gender equality has been achieved, or at least
things are much better now for women. This study lends weight to this
challenge. In the sports pages of the UK press, misogyny, conscious or
unconscious, appears to be alive and well. What is more, our findings are
remarkably consistent with other research into this area (Godoy-Pressland,
2014; WSFF report, 2006, in Peacock, Daily Telegraph, October 24, 2012).
It is hard not to agree with the WSFF’s assertion that our media value
male achievements over those of females (Peacock, Daily Telegraph,
October 24, 2012), and this tendency to confer a lower status to women’s
sports is reflected across the world (Gallagher, 2006, 37). In the UK, the
Express and red-top newspapers are the worst offenders. Women athletes
are practically invisible in these newspapers. What we appear to be
witnessing in newspaper sports coverage is the continuing “symbolic
annihilation” of women in the media that was highlighted as long ago as
the 1970s (Tuchman, 1978).
However, not everyone is convinced that more coverage of women’s
sport is being demanded (Kay and Mott) or that the media exists to alter
society (Kay and Mott ). As Times’ football correspondent Kay argues, “It’s
not down to papers to tell us to join a gym; that has to come from the
individual.” (Interview by phone, April 9, 2013). While there is
undoubtedly some truth in the argument that the media can’t make
people change, the relative “invisibility” of women’s sports in the press
(literally, in some editions) outside of great sporting events must have an
effect on people’s perceptions. If women’s sports are not even on the
radar of most people, then there is indeed little hope of creating readers’
interest and popularising female sports, or encouraging women to change
16
their role models and take up sport. Omission from the news agenda
(systematic absences) can be as powerful an influence as that which is
included.
And putting aside the debate about how much the media can or
should influence society, its job is most certainly to reflect society; it
cannot be argued that average newspaper coverage of women’s sports
languishing at below 5% in any way reflects the reality of women’s
sporting achievements. As Gallagher (2006, 18) points out: “The ‘mirror’
of the world provided by the news is like a circus mirror. It distorts reality,
inflating the importance of certain groups, while pushing others to the
margins.” It is no longer acceptable for the world of newspaper sports’
reporting to be one where women are routinely invisible. As the WSFF
says, “This has to change or the Olympic legacy will have failed for
women.” (Peacock, Daily Telegraph, October 24, 2012). Nevertheless, the
media are just one piece of the jigsaw: sports organisations and the public
also have a role to play. If people want this lamentable level of coverage
to increase, readers and viewers need to make their demands known to
editors, and to engage with the limited coverage that currently exists.
The promoters of women’s sports need to reach out more to journalists
with limited resources. As for the media - print journalism in particular -
while continuing to deprive young girls of positive role models, and
routinely missing out on great entertainment opportunities for audiences,
they may well be missing out on the chance to increase future revenue by
building audiences. Broadcasters are beginning to cotton on to this
possibility and newspapers would do well to join in.
References
Aitchison, Cara. 2007. Sport and Gender Identities: Masculinities,
femininities and sexualities. New York: Routledge.
Andrews, Phil. 2005. Sports Journalism: A Practical Introduction. London:
Sage.
Balding, Clare. 2012. “Keep the spotlight on girls in sport”. Sun,
September 16.
Barnes, Simon. 2012. “Keeping up appearances in complex times”. Times,
February 24.
BBC. 2007. “Newell fined over sexist outburst”, February 13.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/l/luton_town/6358999.stm .
BBC. 2011. “Obesity 'worse for teen girls' blood pressure”, October 14.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-15305061.
BBC. 2012. “Women's Super League launches Twitter kit initiative to raise
profile”, April 4. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/17608531.
17
BBC. 2012. “History- The 1908 London Olympics Gallery”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/britain_wwone/olympics_1908_gallery
_08.shtm
BBC. 2012. “Olympic Games: Lord Coe made legacy ambassador”, August
12. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19231492
Billings, Andrew C. 2011. Sports Media: Transformations, integration,
consumption. New York: Routledge.
Brookes, Rod. 2002. Representing Sport. London: Arnold
Boyle, Raymond. 2006. Sports Journalism: Context and Issues. London:
Sage.
Boyle, Raymond, and Richard Haynes. 2009. Power Play: Sport, the Media
and Popular Culture. UK: Pearson Education Limited.
Cahn, Susan. 1994. Coming on Strong: Gender and Sexuality in Twentieth
Century Women’s Sport. New York: Free Press
Carrington, Ben, and Ian McDonald. 2001. Race, Sport, and British Society.
London: Routledge.
Cashmore, Ellis. 2010. Making Sense of Sports. Oxon: Routledge
Choi, Precilla. 2000. Femininity and the Physically Active Woman. London:
Routledge.
Cochrane, Kira. 2008. “Three cheers”, The Guardian, August 12
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2008/aug/12/women.nicolecooke
Connell, Robert, W. 1995. Masculinities. Berkeley and Los Angeles, Ca:
University of California Press.
Culf, Andrew. 2006. “FA to contact Newell over attack on female officials”.
Guardian, November 13.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2006/nov/13/newsstory.sport3?
INTCMP=SRCH.
Dunning, Eric. 1999. Sport Matters: Sociological Studies of Sport,
Violence, and Civilization. London: Routledge.
Eason, Kevin (2013) ‘Pioneer Patrick takes the lonely road to Hollywood-
style stardom’, The Times, 23rd February 2013.
Foggo, Daniel. 2002. “League’s only female ref faces final whistle”, Daily
Telegraph, August 11.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1404124/Leagues-only-female-
ref-faces-final-whistle.html
Franks, Suzanne. 2013. Women and Journalism. London, New York: I.B.
Taurus
18
Franks, Suzanne and O’Neill, Deirdre. Women Reporting Sport: Still a
man’s game? (submitted for publication).
Gallagher, Margaret. 2006. Who Makes the News? Global Media
Monitoring Project 2005. http://cdn.agilitycms.com/who-makes-the-
news/Imported/reports_2005/gmmp-report-en-2005.pdf
Gems, Gerald R. and Gertrud Pfister. 2009. Understanding American
Sport: In culture and society. New York: Routledge.
Gibson, Owen. 2011. “Women's sport 'attracts 0.5% of all sponsorship’ ”,
November 5. http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2011/nov/05/women-
sport-point-five-sponsorship
Gilbert, Keith. 2005. Sexuality, Sport and the Culture of Risk. UK: Meyer &
Meyer Verlag.
Godoy-Pressland, Amy. 2014. “ ‘Nothing to report’: a semi-longitudinal
investigation of the print media coverage of sportswomen in British
Sunday newspapers.” Media, Culture and Society 36 (5): 595-609.
Greenslade, Roy. 2013. “Mail on Sunday appoints Fleet Street's first
female sports editor”. Guardian, March 20, 2013.
Hargreaves, Jennifer, and Ian McDonald. 2000. “Cultural studies and
sociology of sport”. In Handbook of Sports Studies, edited by Jay Coakley
and Eric Dunning. London: Sage.
Hartman-Tews, Ilse, and Gertrud Pfister. 2003. Sport and women: social
issues in international perspective. London: Routledge.
Horky, Thomas and Nieland, Jorge-Uwe. 2011. International Sport Press
Survey 2011.
http://www.playthegame.org/fileadmin/image/PtG2013/Presentations/30_O
ctober_Wednesday/Horky-Nieland_PTG_2013_11.30.pdf
Houlihan, Barrie. 2003. Sport and Society: A student introduction. London:
Sage.
Kassouf, Jeff. 2011. Girls Play to Win Soccer. USA: Norwood House Press.
Kirk, David, Doune MacDonald and Mary O’Sullivan. 2006. The Handbook
of Physical Education. London: Sage.
Magee, Jonathan, Jayne Cauldwell, Katie Liston and Sheila Scraton. 2008.
Women, Football and Europe: Histories, equity and experience. UK: Meyer
& Meyer Verlag.
Mallon, Bill, Jeroen, Heijmans. 2011. Historical Dictionary of the Olympic
Movement. UK: Scarecrow Press
Mangan, James A. 2006. A Sport-loving Society: Victorian and Edwardian
Middle-class England at Play. London: Routledge.
19
McRobbie, Angela. 2009. The Aftermath of Feminism: Gender, culture and
social change. Los Angeles, London, New Dehli, Singapore, Washington
DC: Sage.
Murray, Scott. 2010. Football For Dummies. UK: Wiley Publishers.
O’Reilly, Jean, and Susan K. Cahn. 2007. Women and Sports in the United
States: A Documentary Reader. USA: UPNE.
Peacock, Louise. 2012. “Olympic legacy risks failing women”, Daily
Telegraph, October 24, 2012.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-politics/9630230/Olympic-
legacy-risks-failing-women.html .
Private Eye. 2012. Sept 21-October 4.
Raney, Arthur, and Jennings Bryant. 2006. Handbook of Sports and Media.
New York: Routledge.
Rodgers, Simon. 2012. “Olympics 2012: team GB medal winners by sport,
education and sex”, Guardian, Aug 9.
http://www.theguardian.com/sport/datablog/2012/aug/06/team-gb-medal-
winners-background
Rowe, David. 1999. Sport, Culture and the Media. Buckingham,
Philadelphia: Open University Press.
Scraton, Sheila, and Annie Flintoff. 2002. Gender and Sport: A Reader.
London: Routledge.
Theberge, Nancy. 2000. “Gender and Sport”. In Handbook of Sports
Studies, edited by Jay Coakley and Eric Dunning. London: Sage.
Tomlinson, Alan, John Horne and Garry Whannel. 2002. Understanding
Sport: An Introduction to the Sociological and Cultural Analysis of Sport.
London: Routledge.
Tuchman, Gaye. 1978. “The symbolic annihilation of women by the mass
media.” In Hearth and Home: Images of Women in the Mass Media, edited
by Gaye Tuchman, Arlene Kaplan Daniels, and James Benet, 3-38. New
York: Oxford University Press.
Whannel, Garry. 2008. Culture, Politics and Sport: Blowing the Whistle
Revisited, London, New York: Routledge.
Williams, Jean. 2003. A Game for Rough Girls? A History of Women’s
Football in England. London: Routledge.
Williamson, Laura. 2012. “Women's football hoping the tweet smell of
success will lead to more coverage”. April 6.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2126330/Womens-FA-
Premier-League-turn-Twitter.html.
20
Women’s Sport and Fitness Foundation. 2012. “2011/12 Annual Review”.
March 31. http://www.wsff.org.uk/about/annual-review
Wright, Oliver. 2012. “New Culture Secretary wants more coverage of
women's sports”, Independent, September 15.
Yiannakis, Andrew, and Merrill Melnick. 2001. Contemporary Issues in
Sociology of Sport. USA: Human Kinetics.
21
Table 1
Percentage coverage of articles about women’s sports (n = 7,107 articles)
10 YEARS BEFORE 6 MONTHS BEFORE 6 MONTHS AFTER
LONDON OLYMPICS LONDON OLYMPICS LONDON OLYMPICS
20-26 Feb 2002 22-28 Feb 2012 20-24 Feb 2013
Newspa Including Excluding Including Excluding No stories directly
pers and any any any any about the Olympics
type of reference reference reference reference (though occasionally
newspap to to to to mentioned within a
er Olympics Olympics Olympics Olympics story) so just one
figure recorded
RED- 2% 0.5% 1.5% 0.5% 1.5%
TOPS (9.5/479) (2/463) (6/423) (3/420) (7/481)
Sun and
Sun on
Sunday
(NoW in
2002)
Daily and 3% 0.5% 1% 0.5% 2.5%
Sunday (10/347) (2/337) (3/341) (1/332) (10/441)
Mirror
MID- 4.5% 1.5% 3.5% 0 2%
MARKET (15.5/344 (5.5/333) (8.5/251) (0) (6/323)
Daily and )
Sunday
Express
Mail and 6% 2.5% 3% 1.5% 4%
Mail on (17/288) (7/282) (13/412) (5/388) (12.5/328)
Sunday
QUALITY 8.5% 3.5% 2.5% 0.5% 3%
Daily and (31/368) (12/335) (7.5/290) (1/274) (8.5/291)
Sunday
Telegraph
Guardian 5.5% 2.5% 2.5% 2% 8%
and (13/244) (6/223) (6/222) (4/217) (14/180)
Observer
Times 4% 2.5% 5.5% 3% 6%
and (18.5/464 (11/439) (21/373) (10.5/347 (18/302)
Sunday ) )
Times
Total 5% 2% 3% 1% 4%
average
of
women’s
22
sports
coverage
Total no. 2,531 2,397 2,321 2,240 2,255
of articles
(7,107)
23
Figure 1
Total average percentage of individual newspaper coverage for females
10
9
8
7
6
5
4 2002
3
2 2012
% 1 2013
0
Newspaper
24
25
