“FROM FIZZLE TO SIZZLE!

”
Author(s): MICHELA MUSTO, CHERYL COOKY and MICHAEL A. MESSNER
Source: Gender and Society , October 2017, Vol. 31, No. 5 (October 2017), pp. 573-596
Published by: Sage Publications, Inc.

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/26597007

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726056
research-article2017
GASXXX10.1177/0891243217726056Gender & SocietyMusto et al. / “From Fizzle to Sizzle!”

“From Fizzle to Sizzle!”

Televised Sports News and the Production of

Gender-Bland Sexism

MICHELA MUSTO
The University of Southern California, USA
CHERYL COOKY
Purdue University, USA
MICHAEL A. MESSNER
The University of Southern California, USA

This article draws upon data collected as part of a 25-year longitudinal analysis of tele-
vised coverage of women’s sports to provide a window into how sexism operates during a
postfeminist sociohistorical moment. As the gender order has shifted to incorporate girls’
and women’s movement into the masculine realm of sports, coverage of women’s sports
has shifted away from overtly denigrating coverage in 1989 to ostensibly respectful but
lackluster coverage in 2014. To theorize this shift, we introduce the concept of “gender-
bland sexism,” a contemporary gender framework that superficially extends the principles
of merit to women in sports. Televised news and highlight shows frame women in unin-
spired ways, making women’s athletic accomplishments appear lackluster compared to
those of men’s. Because this “bland” language normalizes a hierarchy between men’s
and women’s sports while simultaneously avoiding charges of overt sexism, this article

Authors’ note: The authors thank Margaret Carlisle Duncan, Wayne Wilson, Emily
Fogle, Randi Kass, and Orasio Becerra for their assistance on this and previous iterations
of the study. Marj Snyder, Don Sabo, and the Women’s Sports Foundation have been
instrumental in providing support and we appreciate their advocacy efforts for improving
the media coverage of women’s sports. We also wish to thank editor Jo Reger and our
anonymous reviewers for their important feedback and guidance. This research is sup-
ported by the University of Michigan’s Sport, Health, and Activity Research and Policy
(SHARP) Center, the University of Southern California’s (USC) Center for Feminist
Research, the USC Annenberg School for Communication, and the Purdue University
Office of the Provost. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to
Michela Musto, The University of Southern California, 851 Downey Way, Hazel & Stanley
Hall, Los Angeles, CA 90089, USA; e-mail:mmusto@usc.edu
GENDER & SOCIETY, Vol 31 No. 5, October, 2017 573­–596
DOI: 10.1177/0891243217726056
© 2017 by The Author(s)

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574 GENDER & SOCIETY/October 2017

contributes to gender theory by illuminating how women can be marginalized in male-

dominated, male-controlled settings via individualized merit-based assessments of talent.

Keywords: gender; postfeminism; sexism; sport; sports media

W ithin the United States, women have made dramatic inroads into
realms once considered only appropriate for men, such as sport,
higher education, and the workforce (England 2010; Messner 2011). Now
girls’ and women’s accomplishments also are visibly celebrated in music,
movies, TV shows, and broader cultural discourses (Banet-Weiser 2015;
McRobbie 2004). These discourses frame girls and women as having lives
full of limitless possibility and as confident, talented, high-achieving lead-
ers (Baker 2009; Kindlon 2006; Messner 2011). Because of sweeping
changes such as these, it is widely assumed that girls can do anything boys
can do (Messner 2009; Ringrose 2007), and the “postfeminist” assump-
tion that gender equality is achieved has “seeped into western popular
culture and social life” (Pomerantz, Raby, and Stefanik 2013, 186).
Despite popular conceptions that the United States has stripped away
barriers once limiting girls’ and women’s opportunities, progress toward
gender equity is uneven (Connell 2009; England 2010; Messner 2000).
The percentage of women employed full-time has leveled since the 1990s
(Cotter, Hermsen, and Vanneman 2004), men have not moved into tradi-
tionally female-dominated fields at the same rate that women have moved
into male-dominated ones (Charles and Grusky 2004; England 2010), and
many educational fields and occupations remain overwhelmingly sex-
segregated (Gauchat, Kelly, and Wallace 2012). In sport, men dominate
coaching positions (Acosta and Carpenter 2014; Messner 2009), women
professional athletes earn a small fraction of men’s earnings and sponsor-
ships (Women’s Sports Foundation 2015), and men own the vast majority
of professional sports teams (Lapchick 2013). Yet within a postfeminist
sociohistorical moment in which the gender order has shifted to ostensibly
incorporate girls and women into many aspects of the public sphere, it
may be the case that sexism occurs in more covert ways than before. What
are the processes legitimizing and naturalizing contemporary forms of
gender inequality? Have these processes changed over time? If so, how?
To answer these questions, this article draws upon data collected as part
of a 25-year longitudinal analysis of televised coverage of women’s
sports. There are three reasons why we use sport as an empirical window
into the processes normalizing contemporary forms of gender inequality.
First, televised sports news and highlights shows operate as part of a

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 Musto et al. / “FROM FIZZLE TO SIZZLE!” 575

mega-billion-dollar institutionalized sports-media complex (Jhally 1984),

one that has historically excluded women and celebrated the supposed
bodily superiority of men (Kane 1995; Messner 1988). Forbes estimated
the sports market was worth more than $60 billion USD in 2014, and this
market is projected to reach $73.5 million by 2019 (Heitner 2015).
Second, sex segregation in sport is both legally enforced and culturally
accepted; there are women’s sports, and there are men’s sports, and rarely
do the two meet. Because gender is often highly salient within sex-segre-
gated settings (Messner 2000; Ridgeway 2009), sport may illuminate
underlying gender dynamics that are obscured within other realms.
Finally, contesting men’s dominance has been especially difficult within
institutions such as sport, the military, and blue-collar workplaces, where
high value is placed on large body size, physical strength, aggression or
violence (Charles and Grusky 2004; Connell 2009). Even as girls’ and
women’s athletic participation has exploded, sport has remained a male-
dominated, male-controlled institution. This is particularly so for sports
media, where 90.1 percent of editors, 90.2 percent of assistant editors, 87.6
percent of columnists, 87.4 percent of reporters, and 80.8 percent of copy
editors and designers are male (Lapchick 2014). Our longitudinal research
finds similar trends in televised sports news; men comprise approximately
95 percent of anchors, co-anchors, and analysts (Cooky, Messner, and
Musto 2015). Identifying the gender-based frameworks through which
sports anchors and commentators make sense of women’s movement into
sport may provide insight into the processes that reinforce male privilege
and power within male-dominated settings more broadly.
By comparing the quality of men’s and women’s sports coverage from
1989 to 2014, we argue that coverage of women’s sports has shifted away
from being overtly denigrating to being ostensibly “respectful.” To theo-
rize this shift, we introduce the concept of “gender-bland sexism,” a con-
temporary gender framework through which sports commentators and
anchors make sense of women’s movement into the masculine realm of
sport. The current strategy for inclusion in TV news and highlight shows
is found in a gender-bland form of sexism, which frames women in a
lackluster and uninspired manner. Televised news and highlight shows
cover women’s athletic accomplishments in ways that are devoid of overt
sexism but simultaneously perpetuate beliefs about men’s inherent ath-
letic superiority. Because gender-bland sexism superficially extends the
principles of merit and fairness to women in sport in ways that reinforce
gender hierarchies, this article contributes to gender theory by illuminat-
ing how gender inequality can be covertly codified as individualized

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576 GENDER & SOCIETY/October 2017

assessments of merit during a moment in which women and men are

perceived as equal.

Shifting forms of Sexism in Sports Media

The past half-century has seen a sea change in the ways girls and
women relate to sports. Organized sport has historically excluded women
and celebrated the supposed bodily superiority of men (Messner 1988),
but girls’ and women’s athletic participation skyrocketed in the late 1970s
(Acosta and Carpenter 2014; National Federation of State High School
Associations 2016). The dramatic movement of girls and women into
sports has challenged assumptions of natural and categorical male athletic
superiority in daily interactions and institutional arrangements (Cooky
2010; Messner 2002; Musto 2014).
Gender relations in sport, however, remain contested terrain (Messner
1988, 2002). In the symbolic realm, media coverage of women’s sports has
historically lagged far behind men’s. With minor exceptions such as during
the Olympics, the vast majority of media coverage focuses on men
(Billings and Young 2015; Cooky, Messner, and Musto 2015; Kane, LaVoi,
and Fink 2013). Research also finds that broadcast coverage depicts men’s
events in more visually exciting ways by using more camera angles, shot
types, and special effects (Greer, Hardin, and Homan 2009). Sports media
coverage also characterizes women athletes as sexual objects (Messner and
Montez De Oca 2005; Kim and Sagas 2014), depicts women off the court
and out of uniform (Buysse and Embser-Herbert 2004), and emphasizes
women’s adherence to heterofemininity (Cooky, Messner, and Hextrum
2013; Musto and McGann 2016). When coupled with the overwhelmingly
large quantitative coverage of men’s sports, the dominant framing of
women in sports media has been historically to build audience interest in
men’s sports and to mute the challenge women’s athleticism poses to ide-
ologies of natural male superiority (Kane 1995; Messner 1988).
Existing literature on gender and sports media, however, often focuses
on a single moment in time. This body of research has developed a
nuanced understanding of whether and how hegemonic masculinity oper-
ates within sports media, but longitudinal studies are uniquely positioned
to identify changes in the quality of women’s sports coverage. Indeed, in
light of broader societal changes, it is likely the case that the “rules of
representation” of women’s sports have shifted (Bruce 2015; Cooky,
Messner, and Hextrum 2013; Cooky, Messner, and Musto 2015; Messner,

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 Musto et al. / “FROM FIZZLE TO SIZZLE!” 577

Duncan, and Cooky 2003). For example, in Bruce’s (2015) comprehen-

sive assessment of sport, gender, and media coverage, she finds that
women’s sports coverage used to be characterized by lower production
values, gender marking, and ambivalence. However, the emergence of
online and social media has encouraged the development of a “pretty but
powerful” discourse. As evidenced by the appearance of high-profile
women athletes in Sports Illustrated’s Swimsuit Issue or in adverting cam-
paigns, women athletes have challenged the conventional linkage between
sports and hegemonic masculinity (Heywood and Dworkin 2003). Despite
this, women athletes’ power resides alongside their heterosexual appeal in
ways that is grounded in consumer culture and often commodifies sexual-
ity, desire, and feminism (Banet-Weiser 2015; Gill 2016; McRobbie
2004). Such results suggest that within a postfeminist cultural moment in
which sports news and highlight shows have been pressured to move
beyond ignoring or denigrating women (Cooky, Messner, and Musto
2015), women athletes face different forms of sexism than before.
This study identifies how forms of sexism have changed within sports
media, and we draw upon the concepts of “color blind racism” and “gen-
der blind sexism” to help theorize this shift. In the post–Jim Crow, post–
Civil Rights era, Bonilla-Silva (2006) asserts that color-blind racism
superficially extends “the principles of liberalism to racial matters,”
which results in “raceless” explanations of racial inequalities (Bonilla-
Silva 2015, 1364). By couching contemporary forms of racism in ostensi-
bly nonracial ways—such as when whites describe school or residential
segregation as matters of individual “choice”—color-blind racial dis-
courses make the dynamics undergirding structural racism difficult to
detect and label. Recently, gender scholars have extended Bonilla-Silva’s
concept to describe similar dynamics regarding contemporary forms of
gender inequality. In a study on rape myth acceptance, Stoll, Lilley, and
Pinter define gender-blind sexism as “predicated on the assumption that
because society is now ‘post-gender,’ what sexism remains resides only in
individual acts of prejudice or discrimination on the part of sexist persons
who are out of touch with mainstream beliefs about gender” (2017, 30
emphasis in original).
Building upon this line of work, we introduce the term “gender-bland
sexism.” Gender-bland sexism is similar to gender-blind sexism in that
both operate “in a political climate in which blatant sexism is supposedly
rejected, yet sexist ideologies, policies, and practices continue” (Stoll,
Lilley, and Pinter 2017, 30). Yet rather than being “blind” to gender dif-
ferences, the salience of gender within the largely sex-segregated setting

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578 GENDER & SOCIETY/October 2017

of sport encourages sports commentators and anchors to render women

athletes visible in ways that makes women’s athletic accomplishments
appear lackluster compared to men’s. This “bland” language normalizes a
hierarchy between men’s and women’s sports while simultaneously
avoiding charges of overt sexism; sexism in sport is now codified as an
assessment of each individual athlete’s merit and talent. Consequently,
gender-bland sexism reinforces gender boundaries and hierarchies, pre-
senting a fictitious view of inherent male superiority in a way that is
subtler and more difficult to detect than before.

Methods

This project uses content analysis to analyze data collected as part of a

25-year content analysis of women’s sports coverage in televised media.
Data were first gathered in 1989, with follow-up studies conducted once
every five years in 1993, 1999, 2004, 2009, and 2014. Following the
methods and procedures from previous studies (see Cooky, Messner, and
Musto 2015), in 2014 we examined six weeks of evening (6 p.m.) and
late-night sports news (11 p.m.) on three Los Angeles–based network
affiliate stations (KCBS, KNBC, and KABC), and three weeks of the
hour-long national broadcasts of ESPN’s SportsCenter stratified by sport
season: March 16-29, 2014 (basketball); July 13-26, 2014 (baseball); and
November 9-22, 2014 (football).
In the most recent iteration of this study, we coded and analyzed data
in three stages. In Stage 1, the first author viewed all recorded programs,
quantitatively coding the March data and qualitatively coding data for the
three recording periods (i.e., March, July, and November). Next, the sec-
ond author viewed all recordings and independently coded the quantita-
tive March data. Two undergraduate research assistants received training
on the quantitative coding and independently coded quantitative March
data. The percentage agreement for inter-rater reliability was approxi-
mately 95 percent, well above what is considered an acceptable level of
concordance (Fleiss, Levin, and Cho Paik 2005). Once inter-rater reliabil-
ity was achieved, the second author and the undergraduate research assis-
tants completed the quantitative coding for July and November. In Stage
2, the second author independently viewed all of the recordings and,
sensitized to themes from the quantitative findings, qualitatively analyzed
the commentary. Finally, in Stage 3, the second author ran descriptive
statistics on the coded data, and the third author compiled the results.

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 Musto et al. / “FROM FIZZLE TO SIZZLE!” 579

Similar to previous iterations (Cooky, Messner, and Musto 2015), for

the 2014 study we coded more than 20 distinct categories, including the
gender of sport (male, female, and neutral), type of sport (basketball,
football, etc.), competitive level of the sport (professional, college, high
school, etc.), and segment’s length of time. We also quantified production
values, tracking whether segments included music, graphics, interviews,
and game highlights (coded as yes/no). In addition to quantitative codes,
we conducted a qualitative analysis of each segment’s video, visuals,
graphics, audio, and commentary. To examine underlying patterns in the
way sports news and highlight shows represented women’s and men’s
sports, we examined the extent to which sports segments discussed (a) the
competitive aspects of the sport, such as games/matches, game highlights,
scores and statistics, outcomes, and historical significance; (b) athletes’
athletic competence (or lack thereof); (c) athletes’ personal characteris-
tics, such as their families or personal relationships; and (d) athletes in
ways that drew upon sexualizing or objectifying language or humor. We
also compared how the coverage of women’s sports in our sample
changed or remained the same since prior data collection years, thus ena-
bling us to identify continuities and discontinuities in the last 25 years of
coverage.
One emergent theme in our 2014 data concerned how the mostly male
broadcasters presented and discussed women’s sports in comparison to
men’s, and specifically how this presentation had shifted over time.
Consequently, in this paper we foreground results from the most recent
iteration of data collection (conducted in 2014), while comparing these
results to previous data collected in 1989, 1993, 1999, 2004, and 2009. We
use these media representations of women athletes as a window into
examining how sexism operates within the realm of sport as broadcasters
and anchors perform their jobs of reporting sports news.

Shifting Mechanisms of Containment of Women’s

Sports

Against the backdrop of girls’ and women’s skyrocketing sports par-

ticipation, our longitudinal study has consistently illuminated a dearth of
women’s sports coverage (Cooky, Messner, and Musto 2015). In 2014,
televised news and highlights shows’ coverage of women’s sports hovered
around 3 percent of airtime. This silence continues to be a major mecha-
nism undermining the challenge women’s athleticism poses to ideologies

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580 GENDER & SOCIETY/October 2017

of natural male superiority (Duncan and Hasbrook 2002; Messner 2002;

Tuchman 2000). Moreover, as we discuss in the following section, con-
sistent with past iterations of our longitudinal study, the 2014 women’s
sports coverage was characterized by low production values relative to
men’s. Despite this quantitative continuity in the reporting of sports news,
there have been significant shifts away from overt sexism in the framing
of women’s sports and women athletes. Specifically, over the last 25
years, the mostly male commentators have shifted from overtly sexist
portrayals, to ambivalent depictions, to a respectful but boring rendering
of women athletes.
For the first decade of our study, from 1989 to 1999, commentators
routinely discussed women athletes in overtly sexist and denigrating
ways. Commentators snickered with sexual innuendo when showing
bikini-clad women spectators at a men’s baseball game or leering at con-
ventionally beautiful professional women athletes (Messner, Duncan, and
Cooky 2003; Messner, Duncan, and Jensen 1993). In 1999, KABC fea-
tured a professional tennis match between Mary Pierce and Anna
Kournikova. As exemplified by fans selecting her as the “Hottest Female
Athlete” for the ESPN.com 1998 poll, Kournikova was well-known for
her heterosexy appearance and sex appeal rather than her athleticism.
Although Kournikova had never won a singles tournament, for a time she
was ranked number one as a doubles player. Noting Pavel Bure,
Kournikova’s then-boyfriend and NHL hockey player, in the crowd the
commentator explained, “That’s what it takes to date Anna Kournikova:
you have to be willing to go watch her play in the afternoon and then fly
across the country and play yourself at night. . . . And it’s well worth it, I
think most would agree!”
From 1999 through 2009, however, the framing of women athletes in
televised sports news changed. Instead of sexually objectifying women,
commentators increasingly deployed an “ambivalent” frame around wom-
en’s sports. For example, a 2009 KABC story on beach volleyball
Olympic champion Kerri Walsh-Jennings mentioned her husband’s vol-
leyball win that day, and Walsh-Jennings’ own announcement that she was
returning to play only two months after giving birth. However, over the
25-year span of our study coverage of male athletes, rarely—if ever—did
they include discussions of men as fathers, husbands, or boyfriends.
Despite recognizing women’s athletic accomplishments, this frame con-
tinued to marginalize women by emphasizing their adherence to the con-
ventionally heterofeminine roles of wives, mothers, or girlfriends (Cooky,
Messner, and Hextrum 2013; Messner, Duncan, and Willms 2006).

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 Musto et al. / “FROM FIZZLE TO SIZZLE!” 581

By 2014, however, overt sexism and ambivalent depictions of women

athletes had declined. We saw almost none of the humorous denigration
of women athletes and women’s sports and only some continued ambiva-
lence. This decline may be in part due to the overall decline of coverage
of women’s sports, which represented less than 3 percent of the total
sports coverage (Cooky, Messner, and Musto 2015). Yet in 2014, the
dominant frame we observed was a dull—neither overtly sexist nor
ambivalent—rendering of women’s sporting events. In what follows, we
compare men’s and women’s sport coverage from 2014, identifying four
forms of narrative work anchors used when covering men’s sports: high
production values and techniques; fast-paced, humorous, action-packed
language; dominant descriptors; and lavish compliments. Because news
and highlight shows rarely used these same narrative strategies when cov-
ering women’s sports, we argue that the matter-of-fact, monotonous,
lackluster delivery style of women’s sports coverage operated as a form
of “gender-bland sexism.” Rather than marginalizing women through
overt denigration or ambivalent depictions, gender-bland sexism disguises
sexism against women athletes as reactions to individual merit and perfor-
mance, thus normalizing a hierarchy between men’s and women’s sports
in a way that is both subtle and difficult to detect.

High Production Values and Techniques

Since the 1980s, broadcast coverage of women’s sports has consistently
had lower production value than men’s (Bruce 2015). By using fewer camera
angles, statistics and graphics, and lower sound quality, sports media depict
women’s sports in less dramatic and spectacular ways than men’s (Messner,
Duncan, and Wachs 1990, 24). We similarly found televised news and high-
light shows aired lengthy, highly produced stories about men’s sports in
2014. SportsCenter’s segments on men’s sports averaged two minutes five
seconds in length, with stories about men’s sports on the local affiliate sta-
tions averaging 47 seconds. Players, coaches, and other important sports
figures such as franchise general managers were interviewed in one out of
every three men’s sports stories on SportsCenter and the local affiliate sta-
tions. These interviews, which ranged from athletes’ first-person experiences
to insights from those responsible for the rules and policies of the game,
offered viewers in-depth perspectives into men’s sports. Furthermore, game
footage accompanied most of men’s sports segments—83.1 percent of local
news and 88.6 percent of SportsCenter stories. This footage highlighted
spectacular plays, breath-taking saves, and competitive achievements, and

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582 GENDER & SOCIETY/October 2017

sports news shows often showcased the excitement of male athletes’ physi-
cality by replaying the footage in slow-motion and from multiple camera
angles. Finally, graphics were included in 83.9 percent of men’s segments on
the local news and 95.5 percent of men’s segments on SportsCenter. These
graphics enhanced the audience’s viewing experience by showcasing pic-
tures of star athletes or team logos and providing viewers with a cornucopia
of statistics, such as details about the final scores of games, team win/loss
records, and team rankings within their leagues.
Many of these production techniques were evident when SportsCenter
commentators discussed the results of a Celtics versus Mavericks game on
St. Patrick’s Day:

The camera pans across the studio to a television, which shows the Celtics
and Mavericks team logos. Green lights frame the television and Irish
music plays in the background. One commentators says, “St. Patrick’s day!
I mean you gotta have something about the Celtics!” Game footage is
shown next. A graphic at the bottom of the screen shows the Celtic’s logo
and says, “Zero-to-14 on the road this season versus Western Conference
teams.” The anchor discusses game highlights as SportsCenter replays
footage of the Celtics missing basket after basket. One of the anchors
groans and says, “Jeff Green, I mean a guy named Green on Saint—uh . . .
no.” Green takes a shot, and misses. Then, ESPN uses special effects to
replace the basketball with a pot of gold. Rainbows and sparkles fly around
the basketball hoop whenever the Celtics score. One of the commentators
excitedly calls out, “Whoa, looks like the liquid light show!” Gold spews
out of the pot as a player dunks the ball. The other commentator adds,
“We’re here to entertain!”

When taken at face value, a story about the Celtics losing yet another
basketball game may not seem to warrant coverage on SportsCenter.
However, by using production techniques such as holiday-themed music,
green lights, and special effects, SportsCenter turned an otherwise unim-
portant segment into a dramatic, “must watch” event designed to entertain
viewers.
Women’s sport segments, by contrast, usually lacked the production
techniques routinely embedded within men’s sport segments. Women’s
stories averaged one minute 17 seconds on SportsCenter—nearly 50 per-
cent shorter than men’s sports stories—and 44 seconds on the local affili-
ates. Whereas the men’s “Big Three” (professional and college football,
basketball, and baseball) were covered regardless of whether they were in
or out of season or whether teams won or lost (Cooky, Messner, and

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 Musto et al. / “FROM FIZZLE TO SIZZLE!” 583

Musto 2015), broadcasts tended to feature only the most exceptional of

women’s sports accomplishments. Furthermore, the type of game footage
replayed in women’s sports segments also differed (Buysse and Embser-
Herbert 2004). Instead of featuring in-action game footage, especially
slow-motion replays where women displayed physicality or engaged in
bodily contact, women’s sports segments often featured athletes as sup-
porters. Women were frequently shown on the bench cheering for their
teammates or hugging one another while celebrating a victory.
Interviews and graphics also subtly marked women’s sports as differ-
ent—and inferior—to men’s. Only one out of every four stories on the
local affiliates and none of the SportsCenter women’s sports stories
included interviews. Graphics appeared in women’s sports segments more
frequently than in men’s segments (90.6 percent of local news segments
and 100 percent of SportsCenter segments), but this also marked women’s
sports as different. On men’s sports segments, graphics and special effects
often were used in entertaining ways, such as when SportsCenter used
pots of gold during the previously mentioned St. Patrick’s Day game.
Graphics were never used in fun, humorous ways when covering women’s
sport, and instead they conveyed more routine information, such as
depicting team mascots or team logos.
While lower production values in segments on women’s sports were
characteristic of our data across the span of our longitudinal study, there
have been important changes over time. In past iterations, we docu-
mented higher production values in segments depicting female athletes
squarely within the conventions of heteronormative femininity, either as
sexual objects or as wives, mothers, and girlfriends. Conversely, we
documented lower production values in segments featuring women pri-
marily as athletes. Given the overall decline of sexualization or ambiva-
lent framing of women athletes, the shift to primarily covering women
as athletes thus has been accompanied with a shift toward overall lower
production values in segments on women’s sports. Less frequent cover-
age coupled with lower production values renders women’s athletic
competence, performance, and achievements unremarkable under the
shadow cast by the exciting wall-to-wall coverage of men’s athletic per-
formances (Buysse and Embser-Herbert 2004; Cooky, Messner, and
Musto 2015). Consequently, by symbolically positioning men’s sports
as “naturally” more interesting and exciting, the higher production value
embedded within men’s sports segments helped legitimize the exclusion
of women from sports news coverage, albeit in a subtler manner than
before.

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584 GENDER & SOCIETY/October 2017

Fast-Paced, Humorous, Action-Packed Language

Unlike the even-toned delivery style typically heard on nonsports news
programs such as CNN Newsroom or NBC Nightly News, sports commen-
tators consistently deployed vocal inflections, high-volume exclamations,
and rapid-fire speech when discussing men’s sports. For example, anchors
often loudly cheered or exclaimed when discussing game highlights, such
as during a SportsCenter segment featuring the Florida versus Kentucky
men’s National College Athletic Association (NCAA) “March Madness”
basketball game. As a Kentucky player scored, a commentator loudly
exclaimed, “Holla!” Anchors also peppered their loud, fast-paced com-
mentary with descriptive, action-packed language. On all four networks,
commentators routinely described men’s sports with action verbs such as
nailed, smoked, ripped, exploded, zipped, clawed, drained, murdered,
attacked, chipped, and swarmed. When discussing the results of a Chicago
Blackhawks versus Philadelphia Flyers National Hockey League (NHL)
game, a SportsCenter commentator described a player as “get[ting]
sniper, wicked, nasty, all sorts of words I’ve never even heard before!”
Another time, SportsCenter replayed highlights from a Florida State ver-
sus University of Miami college football game. As a Florida State player
successfully rushed through Miami’s defense, the commentator exclaimed,
“Like a hot knife through butter!”
Commentators also often used nicknames or made jokes when referring
to men players, teams, and important sporting events. The men’s March
Madness tournament was regularly called “The Dance.” On the local
affiliates, the National Basketball Association (NBA) Los Angeles
Clippers games were called “The Blake Show” and “Lob City,” due to
Blake Griffin’s and DeAndre Jordan’s dunking abilities. On all four sta-
tions, NBA player Kobe Bryant and Major League Baseball (MLB) player
Félix Hernández were respectively called “The Mamba” and “King
Félix.” In addition, sports commentators regularly included endearing
comedic observations about players. For example, during a SportsCenter
segment where White Sox outfielder Blake Tekotte caught the baseball,
the commentator riffed on the similarity between Tekotte’s name and the
Mexican beer Tecate. He bellowed, “BARTENDER! How about a
Tekotte? . . . Woo! He went import on us!” Another SportsCenter broad-
cast included highlights from a National Football League (NFL) Panthers
vs. Eagles game, and the commentator joked, “Only your local grocery
store has more sacks than the Eagles in this game!”
These clever word plays and comedic observations were not limited to
teams or athletes with impressive performances. While it might be

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 Musto et al. / “FROM FIZZLE TO SIZZLE!” 585

expected that having one of the worst seasons in NBA history would be
justification for not covering that team on the highlight shows, this was
not the case. The Philadelphia 76ers had lost 22 games in a row and were
on track to having one of the worst seasons in NBA history, but televised
news and highlight shows continued to regularly cover their games. In one
segment, SportsCenter employed special effects so it would appear as if
the 76ers were shooting bricks at the hoop instead of basketballs. As
members of the 76ers team missed shot after shot, the commentator cried,
“Wow, that’s a real brick!,” “Brick it up, brick it up!,” and “Let’s build a
house, shall we?” The commentators’ vocal intonations and jokes turned
a less than inspiring game into an interesting one.
Fast-paced, funny, action-packed language was largely absent from
women’s sports coverage. Instead, women’s sports were normally pre-
sented in a monotone, uninspired, “matter-of-fact” style. The following
example illustrates the difference in delivery of men’s sports compared to
that of women’s in SportsCenter’s “Top Ten Plays” segment:

The tenth best play of the day is awarded to an India vs. Pakistan men’s cricket
game, with a commentator saying India had a “wicked victory.” The ninth best
play goes to Missy Franklin, “who competed at the women’s NCAA swim-
ming and diving championship today.” The commentator says, “Missy
Franklin. In the NCAA women’s swimming and diving championship. Way
ahead of the pack in the 200-yard freestyle. Wins easily.” The commentators
also note that she “sets the American, NCAA and U.S. Open record in the
event.” The seventh best play goes to a golfer at the Arnold Palmer golf invi-
tational, who sunk a 116-foot shot. In a voice-over the ESPN commentator
exclaims, “That’s what I’m talking about!” Number six is from a spring train-
ing MLB game between the Cubs and the White Sox. The second baseman
catches the ball and tags a player out, and a commentator gushes, “I think he’s
ready for the regular season! Let’s get it going!” Number four is from the Heat
vs. Grizzlies basketball game, showing Ray Allen scoring. The voice-over
from the in-studio commentator exclaims, “From fizzle to sizzle!”

If one were to rank the sports achievements included in this segment, win-
ning an NCAA championship in multiple record-breaking time is likely a
more noteworthy athletic accomplishment than the more routine men’s
events presented (i.e., tagging a player out at second base during a pre-
season game or scoring during a regular season game). Yet the quality of
the commentators’ delivery of the men’s stories sizzled, while their deliv-
ery in describing Franklin’s record-shattering swim fizzled. Instead of
exclaiming that Franklin had a “wicked victory!” or “got it going!” the
commentator flatly observed Franklin was “way ahead” and “wins easily.”

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586 GENDER & SOCIETY/October 2017

The coverage of Franklin also lacked the exciting language (e.g., “that’s
what I’m talking about!”) included in the verbal delivery of men’s sports.
The flat, matter-of-fact style of commentary in this segment was typical
of the bland way women’s sports were covered.
In previous iterations of this study, women were often included on
sports news shows as gag features (Duncan, Messner, and Cooky 2000;
Messner, Duncan, and Cooky 2003), which situated women as outsiders
in the male-dominated space of sports news. For example, in 2004,
SportsCenter ran a 13-second story on a “weightlifting granny.” One com-
mentator quipped, “We’ve been waiting forever for a sequel to the gover-
nor of California’s hit, ‘Pumping Iron.’ We have it: here she is, the star of
the show, the weight-lifting grandmama. Granny, you made us proud.” In
2014, these sorts of trivializing gag features had mostly disappeared from
sports news and highlights shows, but commentators’ lack of humor
ironically continues to mark women as different. In segments on men’s
sports, sports commentators used humor to convey excitement for men’s
athletic prowess. This form of narrative work functions as a type of verbal
“horseplay” (Ainsworth, Batty, and Burchielli 2014; Gregory 2009), cre-
ating opportunities for the presumably male audiences to bond with the
mostly male commentators. This language, moreover, is flexible enough
to be applied to any situation (Sargent 2009), ensuring that even segments
about underperforming men’s teams remained interesting. While it is now
rare for anchors to humorously sexualize women athletes, humor contin-
ues to be used on televised sports news shows to subtly mark women’s
sports as different. Reserving fast-paced, funny, and descriptive language
for men’s sports coverage “otherizes softly” (Bonilla-Silva 2006, 3),
allowing sports news shows to construct symbolically men’s sports as
more interesting while subtly drawing attention to women’s inferiority
through bland coverage.

Dominant Language
Commentators regularly employed dominant descriptors and agentic
language when discussing male athletes and men’s teams, characterizing
men as firmly in control of events that transpired during games. In July,
for example, SportsCenter featured a segment about Andrew Wiggins, a
Minnesota Timberwolves basketball player. Footage from the 76ers vs.
Timberwolves game was shown as the commentator narrates:

On Monday, [Wiggins] put two 76ers defenders in the spin cycle, throwing
down a monstrous two-handed jam before Nerlens Noel could even get

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 Musto et al. / “FROM FIZZLE TO SIZZLE!” 587

there. And Wiggins doin’ it on D! Noel was victim to one of his highlight
blocks in the same game, and Spurs rookie Kyle Anderson [was] also
rejected by Wiggins on Sunday.

Not only is Wiggins described as putting two 76ers “in the spin cycle” as
he completed a “monstrous two-handed jam,” but the commentator also
said that two other men fell “victim” to Wiggins’ “highlight blocks.”
Wiggins was not the only man whose athletic abilities were described
with dominant language. When covering the British Open, commentators
on all four networks used dominant phrases to describe golfer Ray
McIlroy, saying he was “dialed in,” “[in] complete control,” “the one
who’s reigning,” and that he “grabbed the Claret Jug by the throat.”
Commentators’ use of dominant language framed men’s sports as exciting
battles where heroic athletes powerfully asserted their will as they domi-
nated other athletes and opposing teams.
In contrast, when women’s sports were covered, dominant language
was almost always missing from commentators’ analysis. Commentators
instead described women’s competitive accomplishments in a “just the
facts” manner. For example, in March, SportsCenter awarded an ESPN
“Star of the Night” to Shannon Szabados, an Olympic gold medalist and
the first woman to play in a Canadian men’s professional hockey league.
The commentator explained, “She had 27 saves, it was a 4-3 loss for her
Columbus Cottonmouths to the visiting Knoxville Ice Bears in the
Southern Professional Hockey League, but Shannon Szabados did
work.” Despite Szabados’ historic accomplishments, commentators did
not use dominant language to describe her performance. Instead of
pointing to the men who fell “victim” to her “highlight blocks” or
describing her as “dialed in,” the discussion of her performance could
not have been more literal. The commentator blandly concluded that she
“did work.”
In earlier iterations of this study, commentators described women ath-
letes in ways that overtly conveyed beliefs pertaining to their inherent
weakness and inferiority. For example, in 1993, commentators described
one collegiate woman basketball player as, “… tiny, she’s small, but so
effective under the boards,” and another basketball player as having a “lit-
tle jump hook.” In 2014, we uncovered no similar descriptions of women.
Despite shifting away from comments that overtly conveyed women’s
weakness, commentators did not describe women with the same dominant
language frequently found in coverage of men’s sports, thus helping to
reinforce perceptions of male athletes’ inherent superiority in a more cov-
ert way than before.

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588 GENDER & SOCIETY/October 2017

Lavish Compliments
Sports commentators frequently gave male athletes lavish compli-
ments when discussing their accomplishments and performances. For
example, when covering a St. Louis vs. Arizona NFL game on ESPN,
Patrick Peterson was shown catching the football. At first, the ball
bounced off Peterson’s fingertips, but he lurched forward and caught it.
The commentator excitedly cried, “Oh, what an athletic play by Patrick
Peterson!” Another commentator also complimented Peterson by say-
ing, “You know, when you talk about real athleticism, being able to tip
that ball with his left hand, refocus, get to it, and then run it in—I mean
I wish I could have done that at some point in my career! Had that kind
of athleticism.” Later in the same segment, a clip of quarterback
Matthew Stafford passing the football was shown. One of the commen-
tators said, “It’s everything every quarterback coach tells you not to do
because you don’t have the arm talent, but this guy does!” These com-
pliments helped construct male athletes as exceptionally skilled stars at
the pinnacle of athletic greatness.
On the rare occasion a commentator praised women’s athletic accom-
plishments, their compliments tended to be restrained and less generous
in their attributions. For example, a SportsCenter segment discussed the
University of Connecticut women’s basketball team’s 47-game winning
streak. This segment included game footage of UConn player Kaleena
Mosqueda-Lewis sinking a 3-point shot. The in-studio commentator says,
“‘Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis has the best shot in all of basketball.’ Those
aren’t my words. Those are the words of Geno Auriemma. And he says at
any level. Best shot at any level.” This was one of the rare moments when
commentary included praise for female athletes, apparently comparing
Mosqueda-Lewis favorably to men. The anchor, however, quickly attrib-
uted the compliment to Mosqueda-Lewis’ coach, thus distancing himself
from Auriemma’s words. Ambivalence toward complimenting female
athletes also was noticeable when SportsCenter discussed the results of
the DePaul versus Oklahoma women’s basketball game: “I’ll tell you
what the women did in the Oklahoma-DePaul game. They outscored
every men’s basketball game.” One of the anchors said, “It was quite an
impressive watching,” and the other anchor added, “Good basketball.”
Although sports commentators regularly called men’s athletic accom-
plishments “perfect,” “beautiful,” “amazing,” and “incredible,” the results
of the DePaul and Oklahoma game—the highest scoring game of the
night—were simply described, with little vocal enthusiasm, as “good bas-
ketball” and “quite an impressive watching.”

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 Musto et al. / “FROM FIZZLE TO SIZZLE!” 589

In previous iterations of this study, women’s athletic accomplishments

were often framed in overtly insulting ways. For example, in 2000, golfer
Patty Sheehan was shown driving her ball straight into the water, as com-
mentators said, “Whoa! That shot needs just a little work, Patty. She was out
of the hunt in the Boston Big Five Classic.” The 2014 iteration of our study
found no similar instances of insulting or degrading comments directed
toward women athletes, but commentators rarely gave women lavish com-
pliments. A net effect of presenting women’s sporting events with “just the
facts” was to render women’s athletic accomplishments as unexciting and
less impressive when compared to men’s, thus conveying beliefs about
men’s inherent superiority in a more covert manner than in the past.

Conclusion

For a quarter century, our study has chronicled a consistent dearth of

women’s sports coverage within televised news and highlight shows.
Even as girls and women play sports in growing numbers, sports coverage
continues to devote most of its time to men’s sports—especially men’s
football, basketball, and baseball. On the rare occasion when women’s
sports are covered, their segments tend to be shorter and lack the same
high-quality production values regularly applied to men’s stories. The
stubborn persistence of the lower quantitative coverage and the poor pro-
duction values marginalize women within the male-dominated, male-
controlled institution of sport. High-quality coverage builds audience
knowledge, interest, and excitement for men’s central sports, whereas the
programs’ lack of focus on women stunts interest in women’s sports. This
“symbolic annihilation” of women’s sports distances women from ath-
leticism and reinforces perceptions of categorical and hierarchical gender
difference (Cooky, Messner, and Musto 2015; Duncan and Hasbrook
2002; Messner 2002; Tuchman 2000).
However, the qualitative mechanisms through which sports media mar-
ginalizes women have shifted over time. Fifteen to twenty-five years ago,
the dominant framework coupled high production values and celebratory
delivery of men’s sports with cursory, low production values and overtly
sexist commentary about women. Ten years ago, we observed a decline in
overtly sexist and insulting commentary about women. Instead, the
ascendant mode framed women athletes ambivalently, focusing in part on
their athletic accomplishments while discussing their conventionally het-
erofeminine roles as wives, mothers, or girlfriends. Yet in this most recent
iteration of our study, women athletes and women’s sports were depicted

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590 GENDER & SOCIETY/October 2017

in a lackluster, matter-of-fact manner. Rather than being insulting or

ambivalent, most women’s sports coverage lacked the action-packed,
humorous language, lavish compliments, and dominant descriptors rou-
tinely found in men’s sports commentary.
When taken at face value, the shift away from degrading and objectifying
coverage may seem positive. Gender inequalities in sport are no longer
upheld through the outright exclusion of women (Messner 2002, 2009),
medicalized discourses regarding female frailty (Hargreaves 2014), or fears
regarding the masculinizing effects of competitive athletics on women
(Cahn 1994). Nor do journalists and commentators overtly trivialize or
sexualize female athletes, women’s sports, and women’s sports fans as often
as they once did (Messner, Duncan, and Cooky 2003). These overt forms of
sexism are now less culturally accepted (Kane and Maxwell 2011), and can
result in sports journalists being fired from their positions (Cooky et al.
2010; Gibson 2011). Social media also has provided a powerful outlet for
resistance to overt sexism in media coverage of women’s sports, as was
illustrated in the response on Twitter to the numerous examples of sexist
coverage of the 2016 summer Olympic Games (Cooky 2017).
Despite the decline in overt sexism, women’s and men’s sports cover-
age is neither synonymous nor symmetrical. Similar to the way that
whites now express racist views in color-blind ways (Bonilla-Silva 2006),
the “respectful” coverage of women athletes is a new framework through
which sports news and highlight shows normalize beliefs about men’s
athletic superiority. Currently, the structural and institutional arrange-
ments by which gender is constituted and made salient in sport intersect
with broader postfeminist ideologies to mark women athletes as inferior
via assessments of individual athletes’ and teams’ accomplishments. This
form of sexism, which we call “gender-bland sexism,” enables sports
news and highlight shows to convey sexist beliefs by discussing men’s
sports with more excitement, engagement, and reverence, while women’s
sports are rendered insignificant and inferior through lackluster commen-
tary. This semantic move continues the aggressive and celebratory audi-
ence-building for central men’s sports while simultaneously shielding
televised sports news and highlights shows from charges of sexism. After
all, now commentators are speaking respectfully about women, even if
this means delivering the facts in a monotone and with an uninspired
delivery. Consequently, gender-bland sexism subtly marginalizes and
trivializes women’s sports in ways that are difficult to detect.
A common perception in the sports industry is that audiences, viewers,
and fans are inherently not interested in women’s sports (Hardin et al.

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 Musto et al. / “FROM FIZZLE TO SIZZLE!” 591

2013), and gender-bland sexism reflects and reinforces this postfeminist

sensibility. Gender-bland sexism explains the lack of coverage of wom-
en’s sports and the poor quality of coverage not as sexism on the part of
(mostly male) sports commentators but in terms of the market-based log-
ics of supply and demand (Bonilla-Silva 2006, 2012; Gill 2016). The
presumed lack of interest in women’s sports by fans and audiences
appears to be a rational response to women’s “naturally” lackluster perfor-
mances (which are constructed as such through sports media). Sports
commentators are simply “giving viewers what they want,” and what
viewers want is to be entertained. This ignores the growing interest in
women’s sports among spectators and fans (Antunovic and Linden 2015).
It also lets sports media off the hook from investing more time, resources,
and energy into covering women’s sports with the same degree of interest,
quality and production values as they do when covering men’s sports.
Ultimately, the continued belief that women’s sports are less interesting
may limit television ratings, ticket sales, the amount advertisers are will-
ing to pay for broadcast time during women’s events, the potential for
corporate endorsements for women athletes, and the salaries of players
and coaches.
Given that many blue-collar jobs and occupations remain almost as sex
segregated as they were in the 1950s (England 2010), gender-bland sex-
ism also may operate in settings where high value is placed on character-
istics such as large body size, physical strength, aggression, or violence.
As organizations have institutionalized anti-sexual harassment trainings
and human resources departments to ward against discrimination (Dobbin
2009), women may be marginalized via bland and respectful assessments
of their abilities. For example, male supervisors or workers might use
agentic language, lavish compliments, or dominant descriptors when
describing other men’s performances or capabilities but keep their evalu-
ations of women’s performances straightforward and boring. These dif-
ferential types of assessments may play a key role in subtly perpetuating
beliefs that uphold the gendered division of labor, such as the assumption
that men are “naturally” stronger or more skilled at tasks involving phys-
ical labor (Schilt 2010).
Furthermore, considering that women continue to be underrepresented
within positions of power and authority within the workforce (Charles and
Grusky 2004; England 2010), gender-bland sexism may also structure
gender relations within professional workplaces. For example, in their
analysis of letters of recommendation for medical faculty, Trix and Psenka
(2003) found that letters written for women faculty members were shorter

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592 GENDER & SOCIETY/October 2017

than those written for men and often lacked substantive commentary
regarding their skills, training, and accomplishments. Gender-bland sex-
ism damns women’s accomplishments with faint praise, mobilizing per-
ceptions of merit and worth to perpetuate and legitimate gender inequality
in the workforce while simultaneously obfuscating the processes under-
girding these forces.
Akin to color-blind racism (Bonilla-Silva 2006, 2015), gender-bland
sexism provides a framework that structures how we think, see, and feel
about women. As girls and women have moved into historically male-
dominated, male-controlled institutions such as sport, gender-bland sex-
ism superficially extends the tenets of equal opportunity and liberalism to
women athletes in a way that perpetuates and legitimizes structured gen-
der inequalities. Within a post–Title IX1 moment, in which feminism has
ostensibily leveled the playing field for girls and women athletes, gender-
bland sexism renders women’s athletic accomplishments less impressive
and less interesting than men’s. When compared to the overt forms of
sexism in past televised sports news, today’s gender-bland sexism makes
the unequal status quo in sport even more difficult to see, and thus to chal-
lenge. Gender-bland sexism is thus a form of stealth sexism. It operates
under the radar to reify gender boundaries and render invisible the very
real and continued need to address persisting inequalities, thus presenting
a fictitious view of gender that is both subtle and difficult to contest.

Note

1. Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972 is a federal law in the

United States that states, “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of
sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected
to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal
financial assistance.”

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Michela Musto is a PhD Candidate in sociology at the University of

Southern California. Her research focuses on gender, children and youth,
education, and sport. She is the coeditor of Child’s Play: Sport in Kids’
Worlds, with Michael Messner, and her work has been published in Gender
& Society, Communication & Sport, and the Sociology of Sport Journal.

Cheryl Cooky is an associate professor in American studies at Purdue

University. Her teaching and research focuses on gender and sports, and
feminism in media and popular culture. She is the coauthor of No Slam
Dunk: Gender, Sports, and the Unevenness of Social Change, with Michael
Messner, the Past-President of the North American Society for the Sociology
of Sport, and serves on the editorial boards of the Sociology of Sport
Journal, Communication & Sport, Qualitative Research on Sport, Exercise
& Health and the International Review of the Sociology of Sport.

Michael A. Messner is professor of sociology and gender studies at the

University of Southern California. His teaching and research focuses on
gender and sports, men and masculinities, gender-based violence, and war
and peace. He is author or editor of several books, including Child’s Play:
Sport in Kids’ Worlds, edited with Michela Musto, and No Slam Dunk:
Gender, Sports, and the Unevenness of Social Change, with Cheryl Cooky.

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