Argument: Equalising media coverage will cause a drop in funding for sport in general

The proposition have acknowledged that media coverage is a crucial source of revenue for sport in the form of sponsorship deals and TV rights. However, forcing media companies to provide equal coverage of men’s and women’s sport, inevitably leads to a thoroughly imperfect and inefficient market within the sports media industry. Sponsors and advertisers would not be as inclined to spend money on media coverage since they would deem that their advertising would reach fewer people and so have less of an impact. Moreover, sports newspapers and magazines are likely to suffer since the vast majority of readers are men interested in men’s sports.

The consequences of an impaired sports media industry would have negative effects on both women’s and men’s sport because they will receive less funding. Let us examine how the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) is funded, as a case study. The overwhelming majority of the ECB’s funds come from TV rights sales. In 2012 alone contracts were signed with Sky and ESPN worth a total of £385 million. [1] Forcing these media giants to show an equal amount of women’s cricket as men’s would be destructive simply because interest in women’s cricket is nowhere near as high. Consequently, the ECB would see its TV rights value slashed and its income severely lowered.

A similar story to this described above would ensue with many other team sports like football and rugby where the men’s sport has a huge fan base. The result would be hugely diminished funding for all facets of sport, most likely including women’s. Consequently, all the benefits the proposition are trying to achieve with this motion would not be achieved, and if anything one would observe a decline in participation and standards of facilities and coaching. This is because the development, facilities and grass roots programs funded by organisations like the ECB and the Football Association (FA) are all funded from the same pool of money, whether the income has come from men’s or women’s sport. Crucially, this explains the proposition’s identification of growing female participation in sport while media coverage remains low.

[1] Hoult, Nick: “England and Wales Cricket Board to step up security in wke of new £125m Asian TV rights deal”, The Telegraph, 17 May, 2012.

Candidate 1: "The media can and often is used as a tool for public policy. Examples of this include the broadcasting of public information campaigns against drink-driving or smoking or else bans on certain advertising such as smoking advertisements or sponsorship appearing on TV.[1] What’s more the government has a huge influence in what it deems to be worthwhile news or television programs and documentaries. This is because of the existence of state controlled media organisations, like the BBC, and on a more subtle level, with the imposition on restrictions as to what can and cannot be published or broadcast.

The media coverage inequality between women and men’s sport is a different issue to that made out by the opposition. Floods in Queensland Australia are more relevant to Australians than Europeans because they are more likely to have been affected by them. Women’s sports, however, are potentially as relevant to people’s lives as men’s sports. The increased participation in women’s sport indicates that media coverage is likely to be relevant to more and more people. Even if this was not the case women’s sport should still get air time; with the internet and digital TV it is wrong to suggest that more coverage of women’s sport will come at the expense of men’s sports as there is enough airspace.

[1] ‘Law ends UK tobacco sponsorship’, BBC News, 31 July 2005."
Candidate 2: "The lack of financial incentive to provide media coverage of women’s sporting event is not a reason to not go ahead with this motion. There is often no financial incentive to provide basic welfare needs or provide funding for the development of pharmaceuticals, but the government still pursues such endeavours. In such cases, extra financial incentives can be provided to private companies from the part of the government, or the government itself may be in charge of the scheme. In the case of sports media, state run media do not require a financial incentive to provide equal coverage, while private media companies could either be provided with benefits for covering women’s sport and/or disincentivised from not providing equal coverage by having sufficiently heavy fines in place."
Candidate 3: "The government can to a degree cover for any potential drop in funding from private sector sources. Focus can remain on developing grass-roots and sports at schools in order to incentivise new generations of athletes, so the harms mentioned by the opposition will by and large not occur. In time, popularity of women’s sport will increase such that it will once again attract large lucrative TV rights deals and large investments from sponsors.

It must also be mentioned that the opposition to an extent present a false dichotomy with their argument. Increased coverage of women’s sport need not take valuable air time away from more popular men’s sport in the way the opposition claims. Matches can be scheduled so that they do not clash with each other, and more TV channels can be created (such as the BBC’s red button service). Additionally, air-time is often packed trivial stories and programs other than popular men’s sporting events. Examples from American TV include reports ‘on supremely unhealthy hamburgers on sale at a minor league baseball parks or basketball star Shaquille O’Neal’s contest with a 93-year-old woman’ [1]. Such programs could easily and painlessly be replaced with women’s sporting news or live broadcasting.

[1] Deggans, Eric: “Continued apathy by sports media toward women’s sport a bigger problem than first meets the eye”, National Sports Journalism Centre, June 8 2010."

The government can to a degree cover for any potential drop in funding from private sector sources. Focus can remain on developing grass-roots and sports at schools in order to incentivise new generations of athletes, so the harms mentioned by the opposition will by and large not occur. In time, popularity of women’s sport will increase such that it will once again attract large lucrative TV rights deals and large investments from sponsors.

It must also be mentioned that the opposition to an extent present a false dichotomy with their argument. Increased coverage of women’s sport need not take valuable air time away from more popular men’s sport in the way the opposition claims. Matches can be scheduled so that they do not clash with each other, and more TV channels can be created (such as the BBC’s red button service). Additionally, air-time is often packed trivial stories and programs other than popular men’s sporting events. Examples from American TV include reports ‘on supremely unhealthy hamburgers on sale at a minor league baseball parks or basketball star Shaquille O’Neal’s contest with a 93-year-old woman’ [1]. Such programs could easily and painlessly be replaced with women’s sporting news or live broadcasting.

[1] Deggans, Eric: “Continued apathy by sports media toward women’s sport a bigger problem than first meets the eye”, National Sports Journalism Centre, June 8 2010.
