ESPN Researcher: Women Find ESPN Debate Shows "Repellent"

A thorough Poynter Review piece broke down ESPN’s intentions and some of the data driving them. The unexpected upshot is that ESPN’s makes male fans seem borderline unbalanced compared with the women. Men are elated by wins and devastated by losses, while women take both relatively in stride. Only a fifth of women between 18 and 34 see themselves as huge sports fans, compared with half of men in the same demographic. Men feel validated as men by their fandom, while women must constantly prove theirs. And so on.

A media researcher at ESPN told Poynter that to entice more female fans the network could “get rid of stuff that’s repellent” to women, such as debate shows such as “Pardon the Interruption” and “Around the Horn.” More appealing, apparently, are shows with storylines, such as “Outside the Lines.”

That word, “repellent,” is a delightful firework in that quote. It’s decisive and it’s pissed. This, we can all hope, is where the Worldwide Leader will take a cue from the fairer sex. “PTI” has to rank among the cheapest cable shows to make per advertising dollar collected; when all you have to do is wind up two old men who like to yell at one another in their spare time anyway, and back them up with minimal highlights and graphics, the half-hour practically produces itself. It’s hard to unseat a show like that if anyone at all watches it. But I move we listen to women on this one. Like the other dude-on-dude programming on ESPN, “PTI” feeds an echo chamber of shouting that escalates into a form of enhanced interrogation. Stephen A. Smith and Skip Bayless are the poster asses for this sort of absent-minded braying, like the drunks at the bar who shout to be heard even when the music stops. They’re not the only offenders. It’s not universal but it is a network-wide problem, and because ESPN dominates the medium, its shouting can threaten to turn the whole dial into televised talk radio.

Fortunately fandom doesn’t need to be segregated. ESPN finds that women enjoy the NFL (less so, the NBA and college football, for whatever reason). That’s reflected, perhaps, in the decent amount of NFL discussions (“coverage” is too strong a word) over at espnW. Football on the whole may be a big enough property to develop programming around it specifically to appeal to women viewers — but it’s hard to imagine that it would justify its existence without a strong following by men, who are still the majority of the sportsviewing audience. Better idea: Incorporate the elements women respond to (reported storytelling, e.g.) and jettison the elements that repel them (Woody Paige howling at Bob Ryan bellowing at Woody Paige, e.g.). The result might expand the audience not only because it’s woman-friendly, but because it’s better television.