Chicken and/or Waffles

Sunday, August 24, 2003

ESPN's Page 2 somewhat recently wrote an article suggesting reasons why men don't watch women's sports. Among the reasons given were some silly ones, for example that men aren't comfortable with watching "feminine" commercials during breaks, something which is entirely a chicken-egg dilemma (If the Comets-Starzz game attracted 1.2 million male viewers, let met tell you what the commercials would change quickly to...) is the basic reason why I, and probably many others, actually don't:

They aren't good enough
The holy grail of complaints about women's sports, and an excuse that sounds especially curious on a weekend when ABC is broadcasting 12-year-old boys playing baseball in prime time. Argue that the third baseman from Saugus, Mass., wouldn't stand a chance against Jeff Suppan, let alone Pedro Martinez, and you're likely to get a puzzled stare, or in the Boston area, a bottle of Sam Adams upside the head. Women aren't as fast, don't jump as high and don't kick as hard as their male counterparts.

Exactly. Everyone who wants to complain that women's sports are just as exciting and as evenly matched as male sports need only compare, if nothing else, the scores of an NBA game to a WNBA game to see. He notes that ABC broadcasts the little league world series. I question if they looked at the numbers that got as opposed, say, to the ACTUAL world series. People want to watch sports at the highest possible level - that's why pro sports exist. An unfortunate biological fact is that, the upper echelon of competition exists solely within the Y-chromosome dominated leagues.

I guess in theory one exception might be soccer - but let's not kid ourselves.

cranked out at 9:01 PM | |