Women And Professional Sports

OPINION: The Long Game

Women And Professional Sports

OPINION: The Long Game

By Trevor K. McNeil and D. S. Mitchell

Professional Women Athletes

The idea of women’s professional sports is not new. For people of my generation and younger, the 1996 founding of the Women’s National Basketball Association was a long time ago. The WNBA is just one of a number of attempts at starting women’s professional sports leagues.

Big Disgrace

The world-wide lack of sustainable women’s pro baseball, hockey and soccer is an on-going and unaccountable disgrace. Particularly considering how well amateur teams have been shown to do, especially in hockey at the Olympics. An injustice underscored when former Canadian Women’s Hockey Team captain Hayley Wickenheiser went to play pro hockey in Finland, where the hockey federation voted unanimously to allow women to play for the existing men’s teams. This of course then raises questions of equal opportunity on an unequal playing field.

Unsportsmanlike Conduct

One of the major obstacles to the success of women’s teams are issues around publicity and sponsorship, at least partly based on the idea that there is a lack of interest in women’s athletics. There is without a doubt a shortage of attention given to women’s pro athletes. Star’s attract viewers. The media doesn’t make stars but it draws attention to them. Perhaps a priority should be to demand the media give the gals equal coverage.

A League of Their Own

One of the first professional women’s athletics leagues was the All-American Girl’s Professional Baseball League. Founded in 1943, when a baseball hungry nation cried out for satisfaction during the final years of WWII, the AAGPBL did surprisingly well. There were the usual cries of foul from arch conservatives, particularly at the beginning, but the league ended up lasting for 11 years from 1943 to 1954, drawing in up to 500,000 fans per season during its final years. Even after ‘the boys’ came home from the war.

Do It Yourself

A women’s professional association that not only survived but thrives to this  day is the LPGA. Founded in 1950, it is the oldest continuing American women’s professional sports association. Boasting champions such as Kathy Whitworth. The Texas native who won 88 titles over an over 40 year a career, from 1960 to her retirement in 2005. A tradition carried on by the likes of Lexi Thompson who at the age of 25 has already won 14 American and International golf championships.

In Her Court

Similarly, there have been strong women competitors in tennis for decades. The 1924 Olympics in Paris a prime example. A fact which finally calumniated in the formation of the Women’s Tennis Association in 1973. It gave a visible platform for the likes of  Martina Navratilova to compete on a professional level, destroying all competition put in her way, as well as being one of the first to play mixed-doubles against men. There have been controversies of course. One notable fact is that male winners got more prize money than female winners at the same event. Something that immediately changed once the governing body was challenged.

Going Backwards

In some ways it seems like we are going backwards. The current resistance and outright patronizing attitude shown toward women’s athletics is indicative of a distinctly retrograde attitude. There have always been idiots, just like there have always been politicians and lawyers, yet things seem to be getting worse. The objections, counter-arguments, and crude jokes, about women’s sports now, sadly reminiscent of those at the beginning of the AAGPBL in 1943. I truly hope we are better than this.

Third Wave

There is the erroneous idea that increased attention on women’s athletics and the push for more recognition is the result of feminist activism. While feminist ideals have certainly helped to push the idea along many other factors are at play. For one there is a major social and cultural reticence in terms of women’s sports. In the good old USA, being a Tomboy is okay until you are fourteen, but after that it is a time to drop the games of childhood and get ready to raise the next generation.  There is none of that pressure on the guys. It is okay for men to play for money until they die.  It’s time that the girls should be allowed to play for big money too.