Hello Mr G and class mates. This oral presentation will explain to you how “women in sport gain sufficient recognition by the media in the 21st century than in previous decades” and how this can still be improved.
The relationship between sport and the media has become so close that without the media the sporting world would collapse. The main income for sport comes from the media, as the media attracts big money through sponsorship and advertisements. The money from this helps clubs to be able to buy and import better players to make the game allot more interesting, the clubs can also use this money to upgrade, build and repair stadiums along with giving the players salaries. Without promotion of sport through the media there would be no new young talent coming through and the sport would become boring and people would loose interest in it. Media has a large impact on games and often games will often be revolved around add breaks. Ever since sport has been broadcast on television games have been changed to attract a wider audience, like one day cricket for example was formed in 1977 because of the media influence to attract a wider audience. A quote from the editor of, the economist (20 July 1996)
“The lure of money is already altering sport and will change it more. Increasingly games will be reorganised to turn them into better television.”(p 367).
The Medias involvement in sport is constantly becoming more important. Sports relationship with the media started out small but become much closer with advancement in technology.

Ever since the media has become involved in sport it has rapidly become a very profitable business. Sport was first introduced into the media in 1956 but had a minimal affect due to lack of communication tools and technology. Then in the 1970’s with the development of technology sport had another go with the world cricket series being televised for the first time to a television audience of 1 million people, from then on the relationship between sport and the media blossomed and were then inextricably linked. Quote Jacques Marchand (1994)
“At the start, the marriage of sport and the media was a love match. It later became a marriage of convenience and today, with the advent of [global] television, it has become, in addition, a marriage based on money.” (p 367)
Since the beginning of sport it has been male dominated and it is only really in the past couple of years women have started to gain some recognition.

The messages the media send about women and women’s sport have a large influence on how female athletes and sports are accepted in society. Women have come a long way in sports from only being able to view sporting events if they were unmarried virgins or prostitutes to now being able to participate and compete in almost every kind of sport, but they still get almost no recognition whatsoever. Women often have to pose either nude or in bikinis due to lack of coverage and promotion. For example in 2000 to gain media publicity, the Australian soccer team had to pose nude in a calendar shoot. In the courier mail on the 12 of November 2008 there were only three news articles on women’s sport out of the thirty eight sport articles there. One of the articles was about tennis player Daniela Hantuchova here is the article I have highlighted the parts I believe that women in sport constantly have to endure (pass it around the room) look at the bottom of that one it says.
“Hantuchova has sustained her carrier well after many years in which a battle to keep weight on her thin 181cm frame was closely monitored by the international media.”
That is an example of the media controlling how sporting women look. The last time a female was on the front page of a news paper or featured on the news was during the Olympics, but still it was images of the girls wearing their tight swim suits or other tight clothes and only featured the attractive girls, yet another example of sexism. The other articles are about the Firebirds net ball team and it mainly spoke about re-signing Tasmin greenway the “English stunner” the article was alright but focused on her looks, And the other article was about the sports stars of the year with a tiny space in the bottom of the page and a photo of Stephanie Rice even though the actual article mentioned her once and was mainly about men. The media have so much control they can do almost anything they like, for example with the women’s beach volleyball they have changed the design of outfits to tiny bikinis, and use many different camera angles to let guys have a “perve” when the girls go to serve, there is a nice close up of their bums. Female beach volleyball has a predominately male auidence due to the media changing the rules to attract a male auidence.
Women need to get more recognition for what they have done for the sporting world, often they are the higher achievers then the males. Take the Olympics for example, the majority of the medals cam