Women's sport on television - a second look

On the 17th March 2010 I wrote an article titled "Women's sports on television" and I took the line that in Australia it is surprisingly significant. For years there were complaints that women's sports were not televised and or taken seriously, and I explained that such a claim can no longer be legitimately claimed.

I took a cursory glance at the women's sports my wife and had seen televised, taking the last five years so as to measure the increase of this impact of women's sports being televised.

This was the list of women's sports we'd seen televised

Netball - tick

Hockey - tick

Basketball - tick

Swimming - tick

Golf - tick

Tennis - tick

Cricket - tick

Track and Field - tick

Softball - tick

Soccer - tick

Gymnastics - tick

Kick Boxing - tick

Judo - tick

Equestrian - tick

Rowing - tick

Cycling - tick

Skating - tick

Triathlon - tick

Sailing - tick

Archery - tick

The list could go on and on. In point of fact, women's sports are regularly televised and it's a wonderful thing.

All these months later I've had time to reflect again on this. There are indeed many women's sports televised from the Winter and Summer Olympic Games along with the Commonwealth Games.

From the Winter Olympics we enjoyed the Gold Medals of both Lydia Lassila in the Women's Freestyle Ski Aerials and Torah Bright in the snowboarding half-pipe event. And who can forget the recent Commonwealth Games from New Delhi India where we saw so many of our women take Gold. Sally Pearson is just one example.

My fresh question relates to which women's sports are televised on a week to week basis as are the men in the NRL, the AFL, The Super 14, the Cricket and Motor racing, the Golf, the Tennis, and the A League to name the main ones.

The women's sports that get this kind of televised coverage is lot more limited. Netball, basketball and the international circuits of tennis and golf. The huge bulk of women's sport televised is at championship level such as swimming, hockey, track & field, triathlon and the like.

The issue it seems is finances. How many people watch it and therefore what advertisers or sponsors are willing to pay the money to televise that sport event?

What we can say is that Australia has many women sport super stars. One is Margaret Court who at the 2010 Australian Women's Tennis Open (which was televised), saw her, a Christian minister and former Grand Slam Champion, present the winning trophy.

Yes, televised women's sport in Australia is 'huge', but it seems on the most part to be focused at championship level.