Steve from She's Got Game sent me a link to this article from The Age, an Australian newspaper. Written by Greg Baum, it starts off like this...
"WOMEN'S soccer is a joke. People walked across the street in order not to watch it in Adelaide last week. Women's cricket is not much better. Netball is OK, sometimes, when there is nothing else on. But women's basketball is not.
Gymnastics? Jumped-up school sport. Women's tennis? Don't get me started. Women runners, jumpers, throwers, cyclists and swimmers do their best, but it is, by definition, second-best. Women's triathlon is a yawn. Women's golf is nothing more than a set of gimmicks. Women's AFL is embarrassing. If women insist on playing sport at all, it should be beach volleyball." (The Age, 8/5/06)
This piece was written in response to some advocacy in the country for mandated media coverage of women's sport. Baum is arguing against a media quota of coverage. While I'm a huge advocate of more media coverage of women's sports, I agree that forced quota coverage is not the right approach - however, he has some loaded things to say in this piece. Such unoriginal, old school, stereotypical writing - you just have to laugh. It's interesting to me because for my book on the WNBA and the media, I recently interviewed two players from the Sun who are from Australia and there take on the U.S. sports media coverage of women's sports was very positive and and now I understand why!
