Study on the Broadcast of Women's Sports in India

Murali & Bagchi (2020): Studying broadcast of women’s sports Nov 2020 Vol. 23 Issue 17 Study on the Broadcast of Women's Sports in India Aswathi Murali1and Amritashish Bagchi2* 1Student, MBA, 2Assistant Professor,Symbiosis School of Sports Sciences, Symbiosis International (Deemed University), Pune, Maharashtra, India *Corresponding author:[email protected] (Bagchi) Abstract Background:Broadcast of women’s sports plays a huge role in changing norms and stereotypes related to gender discrimination. The female athletes face circumstances wherein they have to tackle serious imbalances in sports broadcasts in the country.Methods: The study examines the change of women’s sports broadcast through the use of questionnaires and interpreting them using the Chi-square test. The survey collected over 70 responses. It attempts to understand the increase or decrease of women’s sports broadcasting and what are the scenarios that took place in various countries concerning women’s sports broadcasts. The results showed the various responses to questions like how often do people watch women’s sports to which 44% responded rarely.Conclusion: Interestingly, more than 89% of the people think that they believe women’s sports are not getting sufficient coverage in India. Based on the responses collected, the general public believes that there has been an increase in the broadcast of women’s sports in the last 10 years. Keywords: India, Sports Broadcast, Women’s sports participation, Women’s sports How to cite this article: Murali A, Bagchi A (2020): Study on the broadcast of women’s sports in India, Ann Trop Med & Public Health; 23(S17): SP231711. DOI: http://doi.org/10.36295/ASRO.2020.231711 1.Introduction: The amount of Women’s participation in sports is generally low in a country like India where the number of people is equal to the total of 12 largest countries which excludes India and China. This lack of participation has also affected not just on the field but the administrative, coaches, technical officers, and various other fields in sports. In India, the male athletes have been having quite the attention when it comes to their sports or the events that are happening in their daily life. This fan base for their role models includes both male and female. If the number of fans following their male sports idol was equal or to an extent close enough for the Women’s sports in India the scenario would have been completely different. The smaller number of participation for women’s sports both on the field and off the field for the administrative aspect could also be blamed on both the people and as well as the media since their lack of interest in the same and the number of coverage for them is generally low as compared to their male counterparts. There is a high need to protect women's sports and that there is a need to understand that women’s sports have the right to gain attention like their male counterparts. The inequalities are not just in sports broadcast, it also exists in the games played(1). It exists in the game of tennis wherein men play 5 sets whereas women only play three sets. Such inequalities often act as a hindrance to promoting sports since the fans tend to question the reasons for these disparities. For a country like India where the most played sport and the most popular one is cricket. Even though this is the case the women’s team does not get the same coverage as the men’s team does. The women’s team has to make huge strides for the matches or the highlights to get enough broadcasts. The Indian Broadcasting sector has evolved over the years. India has around 780 million people who have access to TV which is the second-largest market after China. Interestingly, urban TV usage grew to 300 million at a Compound Annual Growth Rate of 7 percentage. Another aspect is that the subscriptions contribute more to the sports revenue as related to advertising globally but in India, the case is just the opposite wherein the ad revenues contribute to nearly 60% of the total revenue. Interestingly the sports industry in India has revenues over Rs.7,762 crore in the year 2018 which has grown at 12.3% CAGR in the last 10 years. The Annals of Tropical Medicine & Public Health http://doi.org/10.36295/ASRO.2020.231711 Murali & Bagchi (2020): Studying broadcast of women’s sports Nov 2020 Vol. 23 Issue 17 two branches of media, the TV and digital sector each spend around 85% at Rs. 3,779 and 10% at Rs. 475 crores respectively. The 1999 FIFA World Cup saw a drastic change in women’s soccer and women’s history. The photos of Brandi Chastain’s iconic goal celebrations were highlighted in many sports magazines like Sports Illustrated, Time, and Newsweek. Here too critics pinpointed as to how impolite and intended her goal celebration was instead of focusing on how well the US National Soccer team played and lifted the World Cup. The critics even told how it was just to get a sport-bra contract from a sports brand rather than telling how the celebration was out of pure joy and how the hard work has paid off(2,3). ESPN is considered to be the first sports channel in the world which broadcasts for more than 7000 hours a year. The amount of broadcast content that reaches the audience differs from state to state especially in a country like India where there are a large number of people who reside in rural areas. Even though the amount of attention that is given to the non- Hindi speaking states is more and better as compared to the situation a few years back. Several measures have been taken by various national and international associations to give equal recognition to women’s sports(4). Many studies were conducted which showed how women were neglected and how they were rejected based on their differences in playing style and biased based on their gender(5). Sharing contents of National Importance with PrasarBharati is one of the factors that is affecting the private sports broadcasters.The Indian sports broadcasting sector saw a huge change when it was opened up to the private sector in the year 1993. Later on, when the T20 IPL started the sports broadcasting sector witnessed a major change in the year 2008.The sports broadcasting sector is directly affected since the private sports broadcasters have to share content with PrasarBharati. Such scenarios affect the common man, the future of sports and sportspersons in the country. There would be reductions in the income of sports associations in the country since the private broadcast sector companies would think twice before investing in Indian sports, which would also lead to the sponsors of sports associations getting cancelled or reduce since the publicity through the sports channels would be reducing. Media creates a huge impact on the minds of people and for a certain while the perception was the fact that they underestimate women’s sports. If the media companies cannot come up with plans to uplift the way women’s sports are viewed among Indians it would only lag the progress of sports in the country instead of highlighting them(6). Tv, Newspapers, and other social media would be playing a very key role in sharing, informing, and generating data for women and their sports. The broadcasters of a sport need to understand the importance of that sport and the women who have played that sport earlier and come up with a proper strategy as to why the broadcasts were less in the past as compared to the present scenario(7). To look into the broadcast would give a general idea of how media need to put out the right content at the right time to the right audience. Since the evolution of the digital world where everyone is glued to their phones and constantly looking for news related to the leaders and celebrities putting out news that can attract the right fan base can help any broadcast company to grow. In England, the London Olympics that happened in the year 2012 was hailed by the commentators as the women’s games. But overall, only 2% of newspapers were reporting on women’s sports and none for women’s football and only 5% for all the other sports(8). For the improvement of women’s sports, the basic developments should come from the local broadcasters in general. Since they have the idea of incidents that are happening around their locality it would be a boost for the women participants on a motivational basis(9). Ever since the emergence of social media, the consumption of sports has increased considerably in India but the real question is as to why there have been fewer improvements in women’s sports consumption. Several studies around the world have focused on the importance of how women in sports are important or the ways how certain apps and local newspaper channels are making use of data for marketing their content and making people aware of the situations in women’s sports. But not many have focused on the importance of broadcast for women’s sports and that too in India. Gender discrimination has always prevailed in the country, it exists even in the sports and sports media as well. The amount of interest the companies put into broadcasting the men’s matches is more than that for the women’s sports. Many studies had shown how there are still gender inequalities in the coverage of women’s sports be it social media or print media(10).

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