Abstract
This paper explores multiple published articles regarding the societal assumption that women’s sports are less competitive and less engaging than men’s sports. Some articles, such as Women’s Sports Foundation (2010) and Carpenter & Acosta (2005),cite lack of funds and media visibility as to why women’s sports are not as highly regarded as men’s sports. Other articles, such as Messner (2000) and NWLC (2012), explain that the disproportion in coverage of men’s and women’s sports is based onsociety’s expectations of women and the assumption feminine“weaknesses” This paper examines the men’s and women’s ice hockey teams at Boston College and details the issues surrounding team schedules, fan attendance, university support, and media presence in an attempt to determine whether BC Women’s Ice Hockey receives different levels of support and investment from BC compared to the BC Men’s Hockey team, and whether this differential investment leads to a unique spectator experience that may explain the lack of spectator attendance at BC women’s hockey games.
Highlights
Since its introduction in 1978, competitive women’s sports have consistently been viewed as less competitive, less entertaining, and less worthy of spectator support than men’s sports
We argue that this stereotype has been used to justify the lack of spectator support for women’s sports, precluding an examination of spectator support as an aspect of the unequal gender hierarchy within sporting structure
The lack of profit should not be used to justify a lack of investment in spectator infrastructure, as it is this very investment that would eventually result in an increase in spectators at women’s sporting events, and an increase in Spectator sports function as social and cultural events, which, to a great degree, owe their existence to media and advertising
Summary
Since its introduction in 1978, competitive women’s sports have consistently been viewed as less competitive, less entertaining, and less worthy of spectator support than men’s sports. Men’s sports enjoy large spectator and fan bases while women’s sports often struggle to draw fans, resulting in fewer, less lucrative professional opportunities for female athletes. We, challenge this stereotype; women’s sports are often just as competitive concessions and player merchandise. Women’s sporting events fail to turn the kind of profit that men’s sporting events do because of a lack of spectator fan base, which is due primarily to a lack of investment in women’s sports as spectator events This lack of profit results in poor pay for female athletes and a shortage of professional opportunities for women in athletics. Investing in this sporting infrastructure would be a critical step in rectifying the inequality between men and women’s sports
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