The idea that sports fans may be “conditioned” to watch men’s sports instead of women’s sports prompted a spirited discussion during a panel at last Thursday’s Game Changers Conference at the N.Y. Marriott Marquis. “We’re socially conditioned to value men’s sports, and we look at women’s sports far differently,” said Management Plus Enterprises Founder & CEO Leonard Armato. “With the exception of a Women’s World Cup, where the nation’s pride is on the line, or the Olympic Games, women’s sports cannot attract a mass audience on television. The reason that they can’t is because women don’t watch other women play sports on television. Women watch men. Why? Because men are conditioned to want to be pro athletes, to look up to these famous male athletes, to want to do this, to watch it. Women are conditioned to look at singers and models and other people and aspire to be like that." He continued, “If we really want to address this and change the game, we have to start from the way that we are conditioned.” ESPN Senior VP/College Networks Production Stephanie Druley responded that viewership draws more from tenure and tradition. She pointed to the NFL and its nearly century-long history, as well as a tradition of viewing the NFL irrespective of gender considerations. "If you look at the span of women’s sports in where we are, we’re very early in that life span,” she said. “When there are the large events that we’re talking about. ... I’m there. I’m with you. I’ll watch it. But on a day-to-day basis, there has to be a storyline.” The panel, titled “Investing in Women’s Sports: Where are the Opportunities ... and the Challenges?,” was moderated by N.Y. Times columnist William Rhoden and also included USA Hockey Dir of Women's Hockey Reagan Carey and Wasserman Media Group Senior VP/Olympics & Action Sports Dan Levy.
COME TOGETHER RIGHT NOW: Armato later in the session suggested the need for a greater platform for women’s sports to draw that larger audience. He said, “The networks should get together and have a voluntary association to promote and distribute a certain amount of women’s sports programming on television. You need to have more than just one every four years. You look at each one of them as an economically viable event ... and you promote them and you distribute them in a way that is positioned so that women and men believe that it’s important.”
Quick Hits:
* Levy, on business considerations for sponsors: “In order for it to be sustainable, it still has to make sense for companies (and) for networks.”
* Levy, on social media, citing client Alex Morgan and the 4 million followers she has: “She has an ability to connect with her fans in a way that never happened before. ... (Athletes) have this fan base that they are continually connecting with on a regular basis.”
* Carey, on challenges of sports’ expenses and barriers to play for youth: “If we don’t have those kids playing, it doesn’t really matter what we’re doing at the top of the sport.”
* Levy, on athlete marketing and drawing individual attention: “You have to be authentic with who you are. ... I don’t think it’s any more important in women’s sports and for female athletes than it would be for men.”
* Carey, on having to draw on a long-term perspective with business partners: “There seems to be a lot of ‘We’ll try it for a year, and if it doesn’t work, then it’s gone.' (It’s important) for us to have, as leaders and decision-makers, the ability to know it’s outside the norm and know that it’s going to have pressure with it.”
* Levy, on spending on athletes as opposed to spending on a sport: “Maybe the opportunity in women’s sports is to spend and invest the time in the stars first, and let everybody come to them as it relates to the leagues. Because I think that’s what you saw with this national team in soccer. You’ve seen it with Kerri (Walsh) and Misty (May-Treanor) when they made their run. People came to beach volleyball because of their stardom. Instead of trying to spend most of our resources creating leagues and marketing to leagues, maybe we spend the money on the stars who are in the leagues, and then bring people in that way, especially when fans can connect with them directly.”
* Druley, on getting people to watch, and female viewers in particular: “It’s hugely important that you tell (the athletes’) stories. ... Our research will tell us, (women) are not as interested in the Xos and Os of it as to the ‘why’ and who the athlete is.”
* Druley, on having a long-term perspective: “We’re midway at the mountain, and it gets a little steeper as you keep going -- but there’s a climb happening.”
