Netball is soaring despite being shunned by the back page

It’s that time of the year again – time for netball fans to get out their magnifying glasses and search through the papers for the results of the ANZ Netball Championships. Sunday’s grand final between the Adelaide Thunderbirds and the Waikato Magic had everything – the best goal shooter in the world, Australia-New Zealand rivalry and a great narrative with both teams going for their first championship win.

And yet, the game was allocated barely 400 words in The Australian newspaper.

Netball is looking slicker than ever. It has been the most played social sport in Australia for years but with the launch of the ANZ Championships trans-Tasman league in 2008, the game took off at the elite level. Bigger sponsors have allowed more players to become professional and the longer hours in the gym have translated to players who are faster, stronger and more entertaining than ever. Games are being televised in a polished format on One HD with the aid of $400 000 from the Federal Government.

If netball is anything to go by, surely women’s sport is on a positive trajectory. Surely it’s only a matter of time before women’s sport receives the recognition it deserves and features equally amongst the back pages of the paper with the men’s football codes and men’s cricket. However, in the US, sports like women's college basketball have not been able to break through to this level of coverage despite massive crowds and an enormous fan base.

In fact, a recent US study has shown that over the last ten years coverage of women’s sport has actually decreased. The researchers recorded amount of time evening news programs spent reporting on women’s sport. They found that the time allocated to women’s sport decreased from 8.7% of all sports coverage in 1999 to around 1.6% in 2009. The recorded coverage even included instances when female partners of male sports stars were mentioned.

Coverage of women’s sport prior to 1999 had been increasing steadily and few people would have expected the drop seen in the last ten years.

The report is shocking and the owners of the media outlets around the world who continue to shun women’s sport should be ashamed. Fans of women’s sport and opponents of women’s oppression have a long fight ahead. The undeniable sexism that exists in areas like women’s sport will not automatically disappear. In fact the US study has shown that without added pressure on the owners of news networks women’s sport could tragically lose ground.