"The Greatest Team You’ve Never Heard Of"

I'm not sure if that is the best slogan to promote the U.S. Women's Soccer team (the slogan appears on their Website). They're playing right now in China for the FIFA World Cup and there has been some sports press on why this team isn't getting the attention it deserves. George Vecsey at the New York Times weighs in here, Christine Brennan of USAToday argues that FIFA made a huge mistake in scheduling the event in September, one of the busiest sports months (meaning men's sports months) of the year. As Brennan notes in her piece "Only seven U.S. media outlets are heading to China to cover the event"  The Associated Press also wrote about the lack of interest in the team. And Sports Illustrated looked at why women's athletes get no respect. None of these pieces (except for Brennan, who touches upon it) talks about the sports media own role in the lack of attention on women athletes/sports. It's the question I've been pondering the past few years - which comes first - sports coverage of a sport or fan interest of a sport, and how much interest is enough interest to drive sports coverage?

Comments

[taylor]

there is definately not enough respect for womens sports these days, and hopefully someone can change that. and soon.