Front-page prominence and newspaper ownership: Examining US women’s national team coverage after 2015 and 2019 World Cup victories

Abstract

The FIFA Women’s World Cup was a steeple of professional sport in the summers of 2015 and 2019. Did newspapers deem the story newsworthy enough to reach the front page? This content analysis of over 900 U.S. newspapers’ front pages published on July 6, 2015 (the day after the 2015 WWC final) or July 8, 2019 (the day after the 2019 WWC final) indicates that, for 1 day, newspapers avoided the trap of gendered, trivialized sport representation. Also, content changes highlight the potential impact from newspaper ownership consolidation on layout design that can have long-term implications for agenda-setting research.