A common misconception about why women’s sports are not covered as often or as well as men’s sports is that no one watches women’s sports, said Vera Jones, an analyst for the Big Ten Network.

This statement is inaccurate, she said, because what people really mean by this is that women’s sports don’t make enough money to be worth showing.

“The media sets the agenda on a lot of levels,” Jones said.

She added that if the media promoted women’s sports like they were the greatest things ever and women’s sports were given these opportunities to grow, then the stigma surrounding them wouldn’t exist.

Jones was one of four panelists that spoke during the Covering Women’s Sports panel for the 2016 Sports Matters symposium on Wednesday in the Joyce Hergenhan Auditorium in the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications.

The other three panelists for Covering Women’s Sports were Josh Barnett, director of content for USA TODAY Sports; Chris Hannan, executive vice president of communications and integration for Fox Sports; and Laurie Orlando, senior vice president of talent strategy for CBS News.

The first panel Wednesday morning was on the face of the future in sports media. The third and final panel on Wednesday afternoon was about the conflicts of wearing multiple hats in the sports media industry.

During the Covering Women’s Sports panel, the panelists talked to a crowd of about 50 people about the culture of women’s sports and how it can be changed further so that they are covered more often and with better quality.

Anne Osborne, an associate professor of communications who moderated the panel, asked the panelists what made the United States’ win in the Women’s World Cup the phenomenon that it was. She also asked if the Women’s World Cup could be used as a model for how to promote other women’s sports.

Hannan said the Women’s World Cup was like “lightning in a bottle.” He admitted that a lot of emphasis was put on the game, and the best sports reporters and analysts — both men and women — reported on it.

The Women’s World Cup, Hannan said, is somewhat of a model, but you can’t compare a once-in-a-four-year event to day-to-day sports.

“What you can do is look at the things that succeed, like storytelling and getting fans to be familiar with who these star players are and taking advantage of these situations,” Hannan said.

He added that it’s been 43 years since Title IX was passed, so nowadays, more women and girls are participating in sports.

“The coverage may not be growing, but the culture is growing, which should be something that — if we have the right people pushing — should make the coverage expand,” Hannan said.

In order to give female athletes better coverage and richer stories, Jones said sports journalists have to pitch great human interest stories that are also marketable because everything revolves around money. She encouraged the students in the audience to challenge themselves to think of interesting and different ways in which these stories can be told.

“Do not underestimate your power based on your youth,” she said.

Orlando said an important aspect of writing about women athletes is to write about how they are athletes and not about how they are women.

Hannan added that more women executives, analysts, sports reporters and so on are needed so that the culture of women’s sports can start to change.

“It’s a socialization issue. It really is the fact that now women have not had a lot of the same opportunities whether it’s in sports or in corporate America,” Jones said. “… There’s concern to say here it is again, we don’t get the same kind of coverage, we don’t get the same kind of respect. Sports is just another area where it’s just extremely visible.”

Published on February 24, 2016 at 11:38 pm

Contact Sara: smswann@syr.edu | @saramswann