Alex Morgan, an Olympian from San Dimas, CA is one of the youngest females to play in the FIFA Women’s World Cup. Morgan recently spoke out reporting that “women account for 40% of all sports participants, but yet they only receive 4% of sport media coverage due to their gender” (paragraph 1).
It has become evident that the lack of coverage for all women leads to a significantly less representation of women / gender on the screen; ‘As a female athlete, I am well aware that I will not be paid millions of dollars, or even compare to that of our male counterparts but, that doesn’t give producers the right to decrease the amount of media coverage time women have’ said Morgan.
Other than during the Olympic games, these on-going issues of women being less represented by media coverage is still on-going but, has finally been addressed. Morgan has rallied together The National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) to team up with herself and other well-known Olympians such as WNBA star Sue Bird, professional swimmer Simone Manuel, and professional snowboarder Chloe Kim with the hopes of launching a new media platform called ‘TOGETHXR’ where women can empower and follow other women’s sports careers.
In today’s society, although the diversity of gender in sport has increased, there is still room for improvement. The women’s world of sport needed someone like Alex Morgan and other women Olympians to speak up and make a change in order to start breaking barriers and strive for equality in sport coverage. Isn’t it crazy that it took until this year, 2021, to finally see equality in sport coverage changes that are being made?
Regan Boucher
Sport, Not Games ⚽ 