Last week, Jessica Mendoza began her third season as an analyst for ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball broadcast. While we’re beginning to see more women cover sports, it’s occurring at a slower rate than it should be.
Typically, sports are targeted towards men 25-54, but they might be ignoring a large percentage of the population that would be attracted to sports if provided more diverse coverage.
“Women that don’t watch sports, I think, would want to watch sports if they felt like they were being spoken to more,” Jessica Mendoza told The Washington Post.
Mendoza’s comments echoed what we heard from ESPN personality Sarah Spain at last week’s BSM Programming Summit in Chicago. As BSM President Jason Barrett noted during the summit, there are 425 Monday – Friday sports radio hosts in the country in the Top 20 markets, 87% of them are white males. Although many deserve to be in their positions and are doing an excellent job, it’s an eye-opening statistic that has remained stagnant for too long. That lack of diversity is not only seen in radio, but in sports media across all platforms.
Are men between the ages 25-54 the target because they’re the group that most likes sports? Or are consumers of sports coverage not more diverse because those presenting the coverage lack diversity?
“We prefer to still not to attract 50% of the population of women [and another more than 30% that are minorities] because we’re worried the white audience that we have might go away if we force them to listen to someone who is mildly different from them,” Sarah Spain told the group of sports radio programmers attending the BSM Summit.
People of all backgrounds like sports, creating diversity will attract a broader audience, not alienate its current target. “If you speak to us, if you give us someone that’s a little bit more relatable,” Mendoza told The Washington Post, “it allows us to feel connected to games.”
During the BSM summit, Spain spoke of creating avenues for more diversity within sports media. “Pipelines exist in every business for white males, but we need to create pipelines for everyone else,” said Spain.
Spain said she has no issue getting hired because she’s a woman. She understands the need to encourage others to seek opportunities within sports media.
“I will be that woman and I will kick ass and inspire other women to create that pipeline for others to get these kind of opportunities.”
Brandon Contes is a freelance writer for BSM. He can be found on Twitter @BrandonContes. To reach him by email click here.
Jason Barrett is the President and Founder of Barrett Media since the company was created in September 2015. Prior to its arrival, JB served as a sports radio programmer, launching brands such as 95.7 The Game in San Francisco, and 101 ESPN in St. Louis. He also spent time programming SportsTalk 950 in Philadelphia, 590 The Fan KFNS in St. Louis, and ESPN 1340/1390 in Poughkeepsie, NY. Jason also worked on-air and behind the scenes in local radio at 101.5 WPDH, WTBQ 1110AM, and WPYX 106.5. He also spent two years on the national stage, producing radio shows for ESPN Radio in Bristol, CT. Among them included the Dan Patrick Show, and GameNight.
You can find JB on Twitter @SportsRadioPD. He’s also reachable by email at Jason@BarrettMedia.com.
