Going to a girls high school basketball game is so much different than going to a boys high school basketball game. You look at the student section of a boys game and see that it is filled with students decked out in the theme for that night’s game. Everyone is cheering and getting the team all pumped up. Then you go to a girls game and you see a little less than half of the student section full. Some cheer and are in the theme for that night’s game, and some sit and seem like they are forced to be there. As a female basketball player, this makes me confused and feel underappreciated.
According to a collection of data compiled by Zippia, a website dedicated to career development, 16.4 percent of pro athletes are women, and 83.6 percent of pro athletes are men. Through the years, there has always been a higher percentage of men than women in professional sports. And their pay is unbalanced and unfair as well. Zippia reports that male athletes tend to make $50,242 per year, while female athletes tend to make $47,969. I see that as unfair because women work just as hard as men. Both genders put in the same amount of time and effort into their sports, and yet women are perceived as less skilled or not entertaining to watch. Since the beginning of women’s sports, there have always been more males than females, even with the help of some star female athletes like Catlin Clark, who is bringing more attention to women’s sports. According to MARCA, a sports news website, Clark and her WNBA team the Indiana Fever have averaged 1.178 million viewers. And that nearly triples the viewership of other WNBA games.
Another way that women’s sports are lacking attention is by social media coverage. You will always hear different stories about last night’s baseball game or men’s basketball game and how entertaining and cool it was. Sometimes on the school’s announcements in the morning, you will hear about the football team or the boys soccer team. But you rarely hear about how well a softball team did or gymnastics team did. According to correspondent Jennifer Bubel of AS USA, a website dedicated to sports articles and national newspapers,, females receive less than 10 percent of social media coverage even though they represent 40% of players, and this percentage has barely changed since the 1980s. A study shows that women’s sports coverage only totaled 5.4 percent of airtime in 2023, and that is compared to five percent of airtime in 1989. Today, men get a total of 60 percent of sports coverage on social media and different TV stations or radio stations. That leaves women in the dust, and their talents can’t be shown to everyone.
If you were to ask someone who their favorite athlete is, most of the time you would probably hear a male. According to Dimitrije Curcic, a RunRepeat statistical website corresponder, women are 62 percent more likely to idolize male athletes than female athletes. And 98 percent of males choose male athletes over females because of the perceived lack of quality and skills in women’s sports that don’t match the skills in men. Some see women as less talented or less skilled than men. And These people would prefer to watch men because they are more entertaining, or because they can score more points, or they are more physical, or they know the game better, but that is not true. If women would get the attention that they deserve, everyone could see how hard working and entertaining women’s sports are.
Despite all the amazing achievements of female athletes, womens sports still continue to receive less media coverage and support than mens sports do. If female athletes were to get all the attention they deserve, it would promote gender equality and inspire other young female athletes to continue playing the sport that they love and could someday make a career out of. As fans, we should continue to support and love all female athletes. We should also encourage others to support female athletes and show them that they are as deserving as male athletes are.
