TerryP
Staff
"The read option is absolutely shredding this defense," the female NFL game analyst says. The girl knows her stuff; it's clear. Terry Bradshaw turns to her in the anchor booth and says sternly, "Look, are you trying to take my job?" to which she says with a shrug, "Maybe."
The female is a spunky 8-year-old named Ella, and the scene is from an ad campaign by Verizon called "FiOS Football Girl" that debuted last week in prime time and showed up in the Giants-Eagles game I was watching. As a longtime advocate for women in sports media, I was floored. While pitching their high-speed broadband product to football fans and general TV viewers, the company has also cast a welcome and bright spotlight on the continuing absence of female anchors for NFL games. Women reporters abound on the sidelines -- commenting from the field in the rain, the wind and the snow. But the anchor booth remains an all-boys' club.
The "Football Girl" story line, a one-minute tour de force, starts with a scene all too familiar to many girls. Ella skips up to her older brother and his friends in a backyard game. "Can I play?" she asks, to which her big brother disdainfully replies, "No. You don't even get football." (You're a girl is only implied.) The friends laugh.
Spurred by the insult, Ella sets out to learn, using the Internet to bone up on football terms and strategies -- she even has a video chat with former QB Joe Theismann, who explains to her the difference between the "shotgun" and "pistol" formations, and then she handily beats him in a football video game. By the end of her intrepid quest, she is an expert.
Next scene, Ella's brother and friends look on in awe as she's behind an NFL anchor desk, dressed in a blazer, and analyzing the game with Bradshaw and another male anchor. "Is that your sister?" one friend says. The brother nods wordlessly. Another friend remarks, "I follow her blog. It's so good, dude."
<iframe src="//www.youtube.com/embed/mpC5b8AWksU?feature=player_embedded" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" width="640"></iframe>
A happy ending, a smart, empowered girl and the respect of her personal male football audience. But this is not the real story.
Among all the major men's sports leagues -- NFL, MLB, NBA and NHL -- not one has a regular female game-time analyst in the booth. While individual sports such as tennis and Olympic events have integrated women into the anchor booth, the TV networks that broadcast male team sports remain intransigent. One argument heard is that women have never played these professional sports, so they can't know the game as well.
Many women reporters are as savvy as Ella's character and could occupy the NFL anchor booth tomorrow. Maybe it's not the career ambition for these women; perhaps they prefer the immediacy of the field to the arid studio atmosphere of the anchor booth. Still, the anchor booth is where the prestige and money lie; it was presented as the pinnacle of achievement in the Verizon ad.
Shall I name names? How about Pam Oliver, Michele Tafoya, Suzy Kolber or Tracy Wolfson? The award-winning Lesley Visser, the dean of sideline reporting, was an obvious anchor-booth choice for decades before her recent semi-retirement. (She was tapped for one stint in the booth during an NFL preseason game in 2009.) And while we're at it, how about naming names of male analysts who never played football? Greg Gumbel, Al Michaels, Kenny Albert, Chris Berman ...
Read More Here...
The female is a spunky 8-year-old named Ella, and the scene is from an ad campaign by Verizon called "FiOS Football Girl" that debuted last week in prime time and showed up in the Giants-Eagles game I was watching. As a longtime advocate for women in sports media, I was floored. While pitching their high-speed broadband product to football fans and general TV viewers, the company has also cast a welcome and bright spotlight on the continuing absence of female anchors for NFL games. Women reporters abound on the sidelines -- commenting from the field in the rain, the wind and the snow. But the anchor booth remains an all-boys' club.
The "Football Girl" story line, a one-minute tour de force, starts with a scene all too familiar to many girls. Ella skips up to her older brother and his friends in a backyard game. "Can I play?" she asks, to which her big brother disdainfully replies, "No. You don't even get football." (You're a girl is only implied.) The friends laugh.
Spurred by the insult, Ella sets out to learn, using the Internet to bone up on football terms and strategies -- she even has a video chat with former QB Joe Theismann, who explains to her the difference between the "shotgun" and "pistol" formations, and then she handily beats him in a football video game. By the end of her intrepid quest, she is an expert.
Next scene, Ella's brother and friends look on in awe as she's behind an NFL anchor desk, dressed in a blazer, and analyzing the game with Bradshaw and another male anchor. "Is that your sister?" one friend says. The brother nods wordlessly. Another friend remarks, "I follow her blog. It's so good, dude."
<iframe src="//www.youtube.com/embed/mpC5b8AWksU?feature=player_embedded" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" width="640"></iframe>
A happy ending, a smart, empowered girl and the respect of her personal male football audience. But this is not the real story.
Among all the major men's sports leagues -- NFL, MLB, NBA and NHL -- not one has a regular female game-time analyst in the booth. While individual sports such as tennis and Olympic events have integrated women into the anchor booth, the TV networks that broadcast male team sports remain intransigent. One argument heard is that women have never played these professional sports, so they can't know the game as well.
Many women reporters are as savvy as Ella's character and could occupy the NFL anchor booth tomorrow. Maybe it's not the career ambition for these women; perhaps they prefer the immediacy of the field to the arid studio atmosphere of the anchor booth. Still, the anchor booth is where the prestige and money lie; it was presented as the pinnacle of achievement in the Verizon ad.
Shall I name names? How about Pam Oliver, Michele Tafoya, Suzy Kolber or Tracy Wolfson? The award-winning Lesley Visser, the dean of sideline reporting, was an obvious anchor-booth choice for decades before her recent semi-retirement. (She was tapped for one stint in the booth during an NFL preseason game in 2009.) And while we're at it, how about naming names of male analysts who never played football? Greg Gumbel, Al Michaels, Kenny Albert, Chris Berman ...
Read More Here...
