Don't Skip This Post Because It's About Women's Sports

If you’ve never been to a college gymnastics meet, you may not realize the experience goes well beyond seeing if a competitor can earn an elusive “10” from the judges. It’s quite the sensory experience, too, with multiple events going on simultaneously. You might find yourself in the middle of marveling at some extraordinary tumbling in the floor exercise when the roar of nearby cheering section alerts you that you missed a competitor sticking her landing on the uneven bars. Those fans, mostly sitting together in their team colors, are into it big-time and add to the atmosphere, as does the almost constant music during competition. Add to that the moxie and agility of the competitors and Saturday’s National Collegiate Women's Gymnastics Championship at Fort Worth’s Dickies Arena made for an entertaining sporting spectacle.

The previous evening I had been in Dallas’s Fair Park Coliseum watching a different sport. Athletes Unlimited’s female professional volleyball players also delivered athleticism and skill aplenty.

The back-to-back events made me think about a point of view I’ve always considered odd: some people don’t like women’s sports.

It’s not that they necessarily think women or girls shouldn’t play sports (although there are surely still some of those men out there). It’s that they simply dismiss them as not spectating-worthy. The argument often runs that they’re not as good as the men’s pros (the 500th-ranked man would double-bagel Serena Williams) or that they lack sufficient athleticism to make watching them enjoyable (they don’t dunk).

It’s my feeling that such people are closing their minds to an athletic experience they might enjoy. Here are some reasons why:

If you’re going to declare that you can only be entertained athletically by the best of the best, you won’t have a lot to choose from. Even the major pro leagues don’t feature that. You’d need an All-Star Game (one the players take seriously) every week. And even then, how would you know who should be in it? Young players displace older ones. Players work to improve their games. Even figuring out who the best of the best are is a moving target.

What we love about sports has to do with so much more than just athletic ability. Persistence, creativity, teamwork, underdog stories - these all help us get absorbed in a game. And drama - we love that. A buzzer-beater, a comeback, even a bad beat in a wager – these all get us going. Saturday, for instance, Oklahoma had to stick landing after landing on the balance beam to hold off Florida and Trinity Thomas’s 10 on the floor exercise. The Sooners won it by .112 of a point, which is not much. The crowd was riveted.

I love a good dunk contest (to watch - like most people, male or female, I’ve regrettably never had the athletic wherewithal to participate in one), but it’s hard to imagine a person whose only enjoyment out of sport came from a singular skill only a handful of men could achieve. And, in fact, in recent years, we’ve seen women participating in many sporting activities once considered boys clubs.

One such pastime is rugby union. And, in fact, the other sporting event I attended this weekend was a match between the Austin Gilgronis and Dallas Jackals. The league in which these men play does not rank among the world’s best (think France, England, Australia, et al). But it still features professional players who compete at a high level. I still saw toughness, strategy, and competition (though unfortunately not drama, as the visitors powered past the Jackals handily). But I still enjoyed it, because even though it wasn’t “elite,” it was still pretty darn good.

It’s actually a good time to bring up rugby, because England's national team just set an attendance record for a women’s game played in the country as they drew more than 14,000 fans to a Six Nations win over Wales.

In fact, women’s sport has shown a remarkable growth recently in such measures as attendance and TV ratings. FC Barcelona Femeni set a new record this year for attendees at a women’s soccer game as 91,553 watched the squad’s Champions League win over rival Real Madrid. The recent NCAA women's national championship basketball game posted its highest TV ratings in almost 20 years, as did last Monday’s WNBA Draft. Ratings were up for the WNBA and NWSL in their most recent seasons.

One theory to explain this phenomenon could be that as more people give women’s sport a chance, they’re discovering they like it. They’re finding it has everything they like about sports, and maybe even adds something unique, like inspiring daughters, sisters, and nieces in a way men’s sport can’t.

The next step will be to see how well commercial entities, especially sponsors, find ways to build on this enthusiasm. The Olympics have shown for years how content around female athletes will resonate when interest exists in the competition. Revenue-generating opportunities, in turn, will filter down to the female athletes driving this interest.

Much has been made recently of the escalating value of the women’s collegiate basketball tournament. The NCAA has come in for criticism of the 2011 deal it did with ESPN in which it bundled all its rights except the domestic men’s basketball championship. Many are feeling they should have broken the women’s sporting rights out separately and gotten rights fees that better reflect their value. And it’s certainly possible the governing body was short-sighted in grouping the rights together like that. I would also note, however, that the deal ensured ESPN-quality coverage of a whole bunch of NCAA sports that might not have otherwise gotten it. Saturday’s gymnastics, for instance, ran live on ABC. Until last year, it had never aired on the national free-to-air network. Could that exposure have helped build interest in women’s sports to the point where sports like gymnastics and softball can stand on their own? And would ESPN have spent the same amount on producing NCAA Olympic sports if it had not also gotten the rights to women’s basketball? It’s hard to know. In any case, the agreement expires at the end of the 2023-24 season, so we’ll soon find out what can be achieved as the NCAA negotiates its next deal in a much-different streaming landscape.

At Friday’s volleyball matches, a player deftly kicked the ball with her back heel to keep it from hitting the ground and her team got the free ball back over the net. It was the type of athletic, instinctual play any sports fan could appreciate, no matter who made it. Athletes Unlimited has made it a priority to make sure female athletes, and a diverse group of women at that, receive professional opportunities. It’s worth noting that the play came on a day when another sport celebrates the debut of a group of previously-excluded players on its stage - Jackie Robinson Day. 75 years ago, many felt White fans would never go to watch an African American ballplayer. Luckily, they did anyway and discovered they enjoyed watching Robinson and the Black superstars who followed him steal bases, hit home runs, and win World Series. We may be seeing the same phenomenon happen in the present day with women’s sports. It could just be a matter of people giving them a chance.

This article originally appeared in the Blotch section of the Fort Worth Weekly's website.

Rush Olson creates ad campaigns, television programs, and related creative projects for sports entities and brands through Rush Olson Creative & Sports, Mint Farm Films, and FourNine Productions. He co-writes an occasional blog series on the intersection of diversity and sports with his friend Catalina Villegas. Read their work in Spanish on Catalina’s LinkedIn profile or in English on Rush’s.

On Diversity and Winning

The authors of this post on diversity both played a lot of tennis growing up. A typical tournament might have five events per age classification: women’s (or girls’) singles and doubles, men’s (or boys’) singles and doubles, and the one we thought about for this post: mixed doubles. “Mixed,” as it’s often shortened to, has gender diversity baked into the rules – teams consist of one man and one woman. So you literally can’t win that event without gender equity – it’s just the way it works.

 It turns out, however, that diversity contributes to winning in a lot more than a certain racquet sport. Diversity of skills is crucial to success in team sports. In association football, aka soccer, you need a player who’s adept at handling the ball with hands paired with a bunch of other teammates for whom that skill is irrelevant. In the American code of football, it’s vital to have some speedy ballcarriers matched with strong guards and tackles to clear the way.

 The quest to identify competent players of all types has historically led to greater diversity of other kinds as well. The reason relates to an aspect of sport that’s not diverse at all: the desire to win. Nobody plays hoping to lose or tie.

 This natural competitiveness historically led sportsmen (and, yes, they were mostly men) to rethink biases. When Bill Yeoman coached the University of Houston’s football team in the 1960s, he created the Veer offense and won a lot of games with it. But Yeoman’s innovation didn’t stop at formations. He recruited the school’s first African American players, reportedly explaining his motivation to Black leaders. "I told them that I'm prejudiced. I'm prejudiced against bad football players.” Yeoman won a lot of games, spurring his competitors to make their own rosters more diverse as they attempted to beat him. The universal desire to win contributed to increased diversity among Texas collegiate athletic programs.

 Diversity in pursuit of winning remains in the realm of innovation in some areas. We’re starting to see those who hire coaches realize that a career spent in the women’s version of a sport can yield knowledge conducive to winning in the men’s version. A Becky Hammon could help the Spurs win games. An Amelie Mauresmo could help Andy Murray win tournaments. A career spent in baseball front offices could produce a Kim Ng, who’s qualified to put together a viable roster for the Miami Marlins as their general manager. Competing as a top-level softball player could give a Jessica Mendoza the wherewithal to excel as a network baseball commentator.

What’s the next diversity “Moneyball,” aka the innovation you tried before anyone else did that got you incremental wins? It might be finding a way to make LGBTQ+ athletes feel comfortable being out in your locker room so they can perform at their peaks without distractions. Maybe it’s finding ways for female athletes to develop their skills within the world’s more restrictive cultures to win contests for club or country. Maybe it’s finding ways to bring sports where different genders naturally compete with each other, like dressage, to a broader participatory base.

 When diversity in sport leads to winning, it also leads to tolerance or, even better, embrace. As Jackie Robinson prepared to integrate baseball with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947, catcher Bobby Bragan counted himself among those opposed to becoming the trailblazing African American’s teammate. The Alabama-born Bragan even requested a trade, which he did not receive. Instead, he came to admire Robinson, not only for helping his team reach the World Series that year, but for courage and character. The two became lifelong friends.

 Finding ways to become more diverse often equates to finding more ways to win, on and off the playing surface. It’s something innovators have taken advantage of throughout the history of sport.

 And here’s one more bit of information to help you win. If you ever play us in mixed doubles, hit it at Rush. If you want to win, that is.

 

This is the third in a series of blog posts by Rush Olson and Catalina Villegas on the intersection of sports and diversity. Read Post 1 in English or Español. Find Post 2 in English or Español as well.

Youth Are Ahead When It Comes To Sports and Diversity

This is the second in a series of blog posts by Rush Olson and Catalina Villegas on the intersection of sports and diversity. You can read it in Spanish here.

We’re each fortunate enough to call Basketball Hall of Famer Nancy Lieberman a friend. Recently Rush conducted interviews with ten young people who had just received college scholarships from Nancy’s charitable organization. Driving home from the shoot, he called Catalina because he was really excited about how the young people had responded to a question about how sports can bring people together.

Per the requirements of the Nancy Lieberman Charities’ scholarship, an applicant must have played at least one sport in high school. So each student has recent knowledge about how it works to play on a team. Tayla Slone, for instance, pointed out that “it's really good for communication and teamwork.”

Several talked about how sport had helped them make new friends. Alexis Gomez explained about “this one girl I went to elementary school with her, middle school, we went through all the grades together. But we never spoke. And until basketball, we were like ‘Oh, you know, like you're so cool. Like, like, how did we did we never meet or never become friends?’ And through basketball became really great friends.”

Through running track, Alexia Barnes made acquaintances she never would have otherwise.

“I would even make friends with people out-of-state and it just was fun and cool to meet people from different states,” she said. “They were friendly and we had a lot of things in common.”

Sharing an appreciation for a sport can ease acceptance of those aspects of life teammates may not have in common. Jeremy Griffin experienced that on his basketball squad.

“One of my teammates this year that I just graduated with, he came from Syria, like not even maybe three or four years ago. So I feel like it brings all types of people together - all types of cultures, races, anything. It's good because you learn a lot, learn a lot about different people. You can figure out what type of stuff you like from other people's cultures.”

Mackenzie Amaya, who participated in cross country, basketball, and softball, noted, “I think just bringing the different people together just helps us bond a little bit better.”

Gomez said, “We all have love for the same thing. We all have the love to play basketball to win games. But we also all have so many different other interests. And so whenever we all get together and play basketball, we're able to learn about other people. And it's just so amazing to know that, ‘Oh, we can all come together.’”

The young people who receive these grants ($10,000 each toward tuition) have to document more than their athletic pursuits. They must also demonstrate academic achievement. They’ve all graduated and are headed to college – basically, they’re smart kids. So they not only observe the effect sport has in overcoming differences, but they also understand why it happens.

“Because you play for passion, you don't really don't care (about) their background,” explained tennis player Seba Al Khawalda about playing on a team with people different from her. “The things that they get discriminated to, they're not as important as the unity of the game that you're going through.”

Jaedan Freeman's own experience provided an example of how the nature of sport discredits stereotypes.

“There's like, so many different races. And a big thing to me in high school is ‘if you're one color, you're not good at that sport.’ So for me, softball was, ‘Oh, you're Black. You're the only girl who's Black on the team. You're not better than anybody.’ And so when you get with a team, and you show them, ‘I'm just like you, I know how to do what you're doing,’ it really opens people's eyes to, like, ‘You're right. We're the same. We do the same thing.’ It's a strong bond. And also it's an eye opener for the world for others that just have a closed mind.”

Zaria Johnson saw the world’s eyes opened a bit wider thanks to a recently concluded sporting event she’d watched.

“The biggest example I can think of is the Olympics. We got people from all over the world coming together.”

Evan Davis played a pair of Olympic sports from opposite ends of the diversity spectrum. That he could enjoy both speaks to the power of sport.

“I play one of the most diverse sports in the world, soccer. Soccer is played all over the world, right? So it brings together a whole bunch of different people, because there's countries in Africa that play soccer, there's countries in Europe, Australia, and none of us speak the same language, but whenever we're on that field, we all know what to do. So I feel like it brings us all together as a family because of the game and how we play together.

“Swimming is predominantly a Caucasian sport. The stereotype is Black people can't swim. And I feel like I actually learned a lot from that,” explained Davis, who is African American. “It taught me how to get along with other people. And it showed me that swimmers are actually very athletic as well, because it's a very hard sport to do.”

The 2024 Summer Games will happen in Paris, France. The first time the city hosted the Olympics, in 1900, the program included an angling competition. It notably featured men and women contestants. Though fishing advocates have not succeeded in getting their pastime included in subsequent Olympics, Chaney Kelly does believe his sport lends itself to cutting across lines of not just ethnicity, but gender as well.

“We have a lot of guys who fish. And in the past four years when I've been fishing, we've seen more and more female interaction with the sport,” said Kelly, who competed for the Lovejoy High School fishing team. “I think that it's great, because everyone just thinks, ‘Oh, my dad took the son fishing.’ But we're really seeing more integration with female competitors. And I think that's a great thing for the sport. Because there's nothing masculine about fishing, we just go out there and try to trick some fish into biting our hook. So I think that in that competition, people of all races, people of all genders, everybody can come together and just try to catch as many fish as they can.”

The scholarship program also takes into account work in the community when deciding which students will receive their scholarship money. Helping others has long been important to our friend Nancy, including those who don’t look like her. She developed her appreciation for a diverse world in large part through her participation in athletic endeavors. When her nonprofit solicits support for building facilities like Dream Courts™, they often cite lessons learned that go beyond the basketball or tennis lines painted on the courts. They suggest that participation in sports can help children absorb so much more than just the game. Our experience with the charity’s inspiring scholarship recipients shows how spectacularly that plan can succeed.

My friend Catalina and I have posted our second blog post on the intersection of sports and DEI. Its inspiration came from interviews we did with some exceptional young people for Nancy Lieberman Charities' annual Dream Ball gala. hashtag#sports hashtag#diversityandinclusion hashtag#DEI