Re-thinking Women's Sport Research: Looking in the Mirror and Reflecting Forward.

Nicole M. LaVoi,Ceyda Mumcu,Katie Lebel,Dunja Antunovic,Ann Pegoraro,Nancy Lough

doi:10.3389/fspor.2021.746441

Abstract

Despite decades of research and advocacy—women's professional sports continue to be considered second class to men's sports. The goal of this paper is to rethink how we state, present, and solve problems in women's sport. To affect true change, the wisdom of a broad stakeholder group was embraced such that varied perspectives could be considered. A three-question survey was developed to examine what key constituents believe is working in women's sports, what they believe the salient challenges are for women's sport, and how they would prioritize the next steps forward in the post-pandemic sport landscape. Results indicated siloed differences of opinion based upon the age and role of the stakeholder in the women's sport ecosystem. We discuss the implications and offer recommendations as to how we as scholars might recalibrate our approach to women's sport scholarship to maximize the impact of our research and affect change.

Highlights

While women’s sport research has undoubtedly progressed, only a few token statistics have broken through into mainstream conversation and informed industry decision-making over the past decade
Why have so few other scholarly contributions been able to achieve this kind of reach? While we recognize that research alone will not create change (Fink, 2015), as we reflect, reset our collective agendas and begin to build back and step forward in the post-pandemic sport landscape, rethinking our research contributions to more closely align with key stakeholders could help us to better serve both women athletes and the growth of women’s professional sports
Our findings suggest while similarities across stakeholder groups exist in terms of perceptions of the women’s sport space, one’s occupational lens and age impacts how individuals frame problems and set goals, creating siloed differences in perspectives

Summary

Introduction

While women’s sport research has undoubtedly progressed, only a few token statistics have broken through into mainstream conversation and informed industry decision-making over the past decade. The most popular academic reference in women’s sport refers to research that has tracked media coverage inequities. The oft-cited 4% statistic refers to the percentage of coverage afforded to women’s sport in sports media. It is regularly used to provide context in industry conversations and simultaneously exists as the most viewed, downloaded, and cited statistic in the Communication and Sport academic journal (Cooky et al, 2015). While we recognize that research alone will not create change (Fink, 2015), as we reflect, reset our collective agendas and begin to build back and step forward in the post-pandemic sport landscape, rethinking our research contributions to more closely align with key stakeholders could help us to better serve both women athletes and the growth of women’s professional sports. Why have so few other scholarly contributions been able to achieve this kind of reach? While we recognize that research alone will not create change (Fink, 2015), as we reflect, reset our collective agendas and begin to build back and step forward in the post-pandemic sport landscape, rethinking our research contributions to more closely align with key stakeholders could help us to better serve both women athletes and the growth of women’s professional sports.

Objectives

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Results

Discussion

Conclusion