ESPN has been airing women’s sports for decades now.
The company has been carrying the WNBA since its inception and airs many of the NCAA women’s sports through its different networks, including ESPN2, ESPN3, and ESPNU.
However, considering the mass interest that women’s basketball has gained just this year, ESPN has received criticism for its lack of coverage of women’s sports, particularly on its ancillary daytime shows. As recently as last month, ESPN analyst Monica McNutt called out Stephen A. Smith on “First Take” for the lack of coverage it had given the WNBA over the previous few years.
And McNutt isn’t the only ESPN talent calling out the network for how it’s treated women’s sports for the last few years.
Related: Stephen A. Smith and Monica McNutt respond to fiery ‘First Take’ altercation
Sarah Spain says ESPN rejected several women’s sports show pitches
Longtime ESPN reporter and former Chicago Red Stars part-owner Sarah Spain said on the podcast “Sports Media with Richard Deistch” on Monday, July 1, that she had pitched several women’s sports-centric shows to the network that were ultimately denied.
“Between the Red Stars and my many pitches of a women’s sports show to ESPN that did not go answered, there’s still this feeling sometimes of like, ‘Man, I just wish I had a billion dollars,'” Spain said.
Related: Veteran sports journalist calls out ESPN, Stephen A. Smith
She elaborated on her pitches to ESPN, even saying that she once approached the network, saying she had a show prepared that would come with a sponsor who would provide funds for the show—while also having an additional three sponsors waiting in the wings.
“When you get to the top of most places, it is still a middle-aged white dude, and they have to buy in, and they have to do the work, they have to read the data, and they have to update themselves on the analytics, and they have to recognize that they’re being told you are years behind a massive economic opportunity and still not thinking of it as a charity. And that’s been really frustrating for me. I showed up with a sponsor that I had a great relationship with who was willing to give ESPN a bunch of money to come on as the first sponsor. I had three other sponsors lined up that said they were willing to get on line immediately, and [ESPN] said, ‘Oh, we can’t sell it.'”
Spain’s comments come as she is doing the press rounds for her upcoming show on iHeartMedia, which will focus on women’s sports. She said that while women’s sports are starting to see more media coverage, they still need to be given the same day-to-day coverage that men’s sports receive, which allows the latter to be easily learned or retained by fans.
“The thing that’s most missing in women’s sports is the everyday conversation,” Spain said. “I call it the sort of connective tissue between the tentpole events, the features and the docs. We’ve done a better job in recent years of telling the stories of female athletes, and we’ve done a better job of covering the beginning of a season and the end of a season. And the middle part, where all the games and all the action happen is just so lightly touched upon. It might make a SportsCenter Top 10, it might make a quick highlight, but the coverage that you’re seeing for that is almost entirely on websites or in social media spaces.”
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She said that her goal with her show is to create that coverage of women’s sports in order to normalize women’s sports conversation at all times, which is what popular ESPN shows like “First Take” don’t do as often.
“There are some things ‘First Take’ will go deep on, but they also kind of do just play the biggest hits that you can debate, right?” Spain said. “I think ‘Around The Horn’ does a nice job when they talk about women’s sports. They get into it. They get into the statistics. I think they do a good job of it. I think what you need is an actual show where the people who are hosting it are tasked with watching it.
While Spain was critical of her employer, she also recognized that ESPN has done some commendable work in women’s sports.
“But both things are true: ESPN does more than anybody else, both in terms of hours of going, sports, programming, rights, packages, and also they could do more,” Spain said.
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