Women Can Have a Passion for Sports, so Why Can't They Report Them? Diversity in our Sports News Rooms.

Madi Kregel
mk790316@ohio.edu

I'm a true believer in the idea that people work their hardest for the things they have a passion for. But some women never have the chance to show their passion and hard work due to different barriers within the workforce. Whether it be discrimination, lower pay, inability to obtain higher level positions because of a sexist upper management- many women face these challenges even after years of hard work in the field.

I have a particular interest for this blog in the women of sports journalism and the issues they face. Because not only are they women journalists, but they are women who have a passion for sports? Oh my lord how unheard of!

Andrea Kremer and Hannah Storm became the first two females to announce an NFL game live in 2018. Amazon Prime Video offered a stream of the two announcing a game between the LA Rams and Minnesota Vikings for viewers to watch over the Fox broadcast of the game. The two announced 11 games that season.

When news of the pair announcing an NFL game first broke out on social media, the trolls came out to comment. Statements about the women's voices hurting listeners ears were made multiple times. The year before, trolls made similar if not the same remarks to the NFL play-by-play reporting of Beth Mowins, who was the first female to do so.

On the Right is Beth Mowins Announcing a College Football Game Before Her NFL Debute. 

This isn't an issue with the sound of these women's voices, it's an issue with the lack of sports news diversity.

In reality, those three women reporters had probably done more sports research and obtained more knowledge about football than most of the people remarking about their reporting. It's not like they  are going onto the field and attempting to make a sack on Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers, they are reporting that someone else did so. And because they obtained the knowledge and worked to learn how to properly report what they are seeing while watching the game, then they have every right to do so- even with their "womanly voices".

If we as humans want to get away from this issue of people attacking women in what most describe as a mans job, then we need to first get away from the lack of women in the sports news room in general.