The media has always been a powerful socializing institution across the world, and it can help shape beliefs and societal norms. However, it presents an image of sports that only perpetuates stereotypical beliefs against women. It does this through two things; firstly, the lack of coverage. Media networks tend to cover men’s sports significantly more than they do of women’s sports (at 4.1%), despite women athletes making up 40% of sports participation. The NBA gets 27 times the amount of coverage than the WNBA, to the extent where an NBA display game has more coverage than a season game in WNBA. Furthermore, the number of newspaper articles that cover men’s sports outnumber articles covering women’s sports by 23 times. Sports magazines were found to feature stories about women’s sports for only 3% of their publications.
Secondly, the way the media portrays female athletes and women’s sports tends to contribute to the construction of societal stereotypes about gender. Primarily when media networks choose to cover women’s athletes, the vast majority of networks tend to regard female athletes as “women, mothers, and daughters”, rather than athletes who play the sport. Things like broadcasting, articles, and sports shows and their coverage on women’s sports are often overshadowed by notes of age, family, and appearance, in contrast to men’s sports, where men are held in high regard and viewed as strong athletes.
Also note that media coverage of women’s sports revolves around graceful gymnasts who are in “aesthetic” motion like in the 1992 Olympics, and hasn’t changed since. This has reached such a point that it is more likely to find a female athlete in a sexualized pose on the cover of a sports magazine rather than in action or playing the sport, and this objectification trivializes the importance of women's sports. This means female athletes are more likely to be perceived as feminine rather than athletic or talented. Men are viewed as more athletic because this fits with traditional expectations of gender norms.
This hurts women in two ways. Firstly, when there is a lack of coverage for women’s sport, there is less recognition; it is less likely that women athletes receive things like contracts and sponsors. Conclusively, the media does little to attempt and cover women's sports as much as men’s sports, which often means less sponsorship, less earning and recognition for the athlete, but even when there is coverage, it is done in a way that fits societal expectations and regularly objectifies them, rather than representing them as independent athletes and sportswomen, which also hurts them psychologically, and cause women to drop out of sports because women’s sports aren’t regarded as sports, but just another way to reinforce gender stereotypes.
The only ways one can expect this issue to be even partially resolved are through increased media coverage, diverting attention and recognition to women’s sports as well, and portraying them in a way that recognizes them as athletes and not just women, to acknowledge their accomplishments and capabilities, while we attempt to change traditional gender norms in society that have, from the start, looked down on women.