A Look & Quick Research Into Women in NFL Sports Media

A Look & Quick Research Into Women in NFL Sports Media

By Olivia Brooks

In 1975, the first woman was cast for sports media for the National Football League (NFL), but the workflow was nowhere near equivalent to the men on the team. 

Phyllis George was hired by CBS to work on air for The NFL Today pre-game show. 

A beat writer, Lesley Visser sat in the shadows, writing up news about the NFL until she became the first woman to sideline report for a Superbowl in 1995. 

In 1987, Gayle Sierens became the first woman broadcasting a play-by-play role of an NFL game, and not until just 8 years ago did Beth Mowins become the first woman to call a broadcast game. 

Moreover, women in NFL sports media is rising in popularity, but the framework of these individuals and what they can provide is still a harsh reality full of microaggressions in the industry. Whether explicitly acknowledged or not by peers, the business, or the audience, it is clear that women in media of a professional men’s league are not given full potential of opportunity to equip themselves the way the men in similar roles are.

But still, that never stopped a woman. 

Many women in the past decade have circulated in the NFL’s media, consumers and viewers warming up to the female hosts and sideline reporters as seasons go on. 

But still, even having to say “warming up” is noteworthy.

Women in the sports industry as a whole have created space more vastly than ever before. But notably, they have not taken over spaces. Women are integrated into the broadcast writing industry to fill stretched gaps that the business did not believe for a while even existed. 

Popular women in NFL sports media today include but are not limited to Erin Andrews, Kay Adams, Megan Olivi, Charissa Thompson, and Andrea Kremer. These women report and write for companies including FOX, CBS, Amazon Prime Video, NFL Network, and more. Kremer is known especially for her induction into the Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame, as well as accomplished Emmy award winning journalism. 

All in all, the women we see today on live national broadcasts for the National Football League, more than half of the week for over half a year annually, produce and put out stories and information for the NFL that have been breakthroughs for the industry. 

And still, women are looked at differently on and off the camera. 

Marie Hardin and Stacie Shain’s research in “Strength in Numbers? The Experiences and Attitudes of Women in Sports Media Careers” show that women are likely to conform to hegemonic traits to build and maintain status in the space, intentionally or unintentionally then accepting their marginal status in the field. Women are seen as “authentic party crashers” since they are being themselves in a new space. 

While yes these are women stepping into a male-dominaed space, that does not mean the space should have male-gaze rose colored lenses on. Is the audience all men? Is the business made of all men? 

Adams, Andrews, Thompson… All of these women mentioned and more have worked so hard to burst past this bubble. To break into the media as their authentic selves, backed up with knowledge on the sport and the skillsets of reporting and writing, and made way to the nation seeing them weekly. It’s truly remarkable. 

Pushing past these barriers is no easy feat, and they are proving to so many other women that it is possible.