The National Women’s Hockey League is only six years old, has only six groups and, like many professional women’s sports leagues, has grown slowly at first. Players are part-time, compete only on weekends and wages are modest: only $7,500 a year On average, their games are streamed on Twitch, an online streaming platform commonly used for video games, and the coronavirus pandemic ended early last year.
Then, you might think that when Barstool Sports, a corporate media page and online with a giant, rabid audience, gave the press to some NWHL players before a bubble tournament scheduled for January and encouraged its readers to help in the contest, the league would instead have distanced the NWHL from the site and some potential fans , creating an online firestorm that highlighted a deeper question: can women’s sports leagues be selective with their fans?
Barstool Sports, which claims to have 66 million exclusive visitors consistent with the month, has had a history of racism, misogyny and trolling to anyone who challenges its online network or its workers since the creation of the website in 2007. The site publishes articles that interview members of the evaluate women (also known as “smoking rooms”) based on their appearance. Her bloggers and radio consistent with objective sonalities, female athletes and sports reporters, make jokes about rapes and use anti-Semitic language. -word in its title. The former presenters, who are black, said the episode would address the unrepentant use of the term through Barstool founder Dave Portnoy, who is white, and asked: Can you make a racist comment and not a television association between Barstool and ESPN in 2017 was cancelled after only 10 days, thanks to an internal refusal through ESPN , basically workers who had been attacked through the site. in the past.
The NWHL, on the other hand, reported progressism: it was the first professional team game league to house a transgender player, Harrison Browne, and its players wore Racism End badges in their T-shirt games. , which, according to some studies, has a predominantly conservative fan base, very white and very masculine, so when Erika Nardini, CEO of Barstool, interviewed two NWHL players, Rebecca Russo and Kelly Babstock, on their podcast, many league enthusiasts and workers experienced a moment of discord. Nardini suggested listeners help the league bubble tournament and even considered aloud Barstool’s choice to buy a team, prompting some league enthusiasts to denounce Online Barstool’s attempt to align with the league. those tweets in a video necessarily attract extremely cheerful enthusiasts of the site’s trolls to each user whose nickname appeared. (Neither Barstoo Nor Russo and Babstock responded to requests for comment).
The controversy has created a familiar tension in discussions about how women’s sports leagues can and deserve to foster growth. Most men’s sports leagues have tried to move away from politics in an effort to be inclusive. Think about how the NFL temporarily painted the fact that Colin Kaepernick knelt during the national anthem, an act that divides enthusiasts, as something harmful to the league. Even the NBA’s help sample for Black Lives Matter came after protests that began at WNBA, whose players began talking and dressing up in BLM T-shirts in 2016. WNBA responded first with fines to its players, but after a reaction she revoked the fines. and pledged to help players’ activism. Last year, the league dedicated its season to Say Her Name, an African-American Political Forum crusade that draws attention to black women killed by police violence. Players used post-game media time and groups used score updates to highlight the names and stories of the victims.
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Now it seems that the NWHL is adopting a similar philosophy. Saroya Tinker, a New Jersey Metropolitan Riveters defender and one of the league’s few black players, headed to Twitter after Nardini’s video was posted to Barstool. “We, as a league, do not want the help of any openly racist Array platform. If you, as CEO, cannot recognize that your platform promotes white supremacy and only further divides the sports community, we may want to have a conversation,” he wrote. Portnoy then posted a video in which he said Tinker “should be in jail” for calling the site a white supremacist platform. NWHL Commissioner Tyler Tumminia gave the impression of helping Tinker’s publications on the video, emphasizing the league’s values. “First of all, we want to remain inclusive and empowering for women,” she wrote. “The good fortune of our movement is based on respect, opportunity and a strong sense of connection between our players, teams, staff, fans, partners and ardent collaborators. “(The league did not respond to a request for additional comments). )
Take the time to make such a suggestion that the NWHL is not afraid to alienate a certain kind of fanatic. David Berri, a professor of economics at the University of Southern Utah who studies sports, says women’s leagues are sensitive to looking at a different audience than men. It is unlikely that some of the other people who regularly find themselves among Barstool readers will become super enthusiasts of women’s sports. “To be a sports fan, you have to make an emotional investment in the team, that’s how it works regularly,” Berri said. “A guy who doesn’t like women’s sports in general, I don’t think you’re going to convince them to become enthusiastic. “
WNBA, for example, has brazenly embraced its LGBTQ fans, hosting Pride parties that have consistently attracted giant crowds since 2014, and their groups refused to keep politics out of sport: when an Atlanta Dream co-owner, then-Senator Kelly Loeffler, told the league commissioner in an open letter that she “categorically opposed the political movement Black Lives Matter” , his entire team, which soon came together through players from all over the league, voted for his opponent. Reverend Raphael Warnock. Su crusade opened by him probably contributed to his victory at a circular time in January. (Since then, Loeffler has sold his stake in the dream. )What about the ratings that some men’s sports leagues are afraid of losing because they’re too political?The audience for the 2020 WNBA games increased by 68% compared to last season.
According to Berri, player political movements have probably increased WNBA’s marketing appeal and helped attract more attention to their games. Nielsen polls last summer recommend that, despite the caution of “shutting up and haggling” in some corners, most enthusiasts approve that athletes raise awareness of racial justice issues. “Our enthusiasts know how we drive,” Elizabeth Williams, Atlanta Dream ahead, recently told me. “Our authenticity has been what motivated us as players on and off the field, and our enthusiasts appreciate it. “
Tinker, the NWHL player who called Barstool an “openly racist platform,” is paying attention to the good luck of other women’s leagues in developing a single fan base. “When it comes to women’s hockey, our LGBTQ network is huge,” she said. he told me, adding that he hopes the league can also seek a more racially varied fan base. “I am very much addressed to the WNBA . . . They have a consistent and committed fan base that is inclusive and enjoys women’s sports, but respects us as women in sport. And I think if we can inspire that too, we’ll be a very lucky league. Prior to the cancellation of the January tournament because several players tested positive for COVID-19, he planned to broadcast it live on NBC Sports Network. And the league has announced big approval agreements with Dick’s Sporting Goods and Discover, demonstrating that cultivating their existing fan base can pay off.
Perhaps the explanation for why women’s sports leagues are willing to have a more diverse, feminine and progressive fan base is possibly because if they haven’t, they probably wouldn’t have a product to sell. Tinker says if the league didn’t adopt inclusion. , as a black woman, I just wouldn’t be playing. ” We’re not just athletes here to be your Friday and Saturday evening entertainment. If we don’t feel included in our league, we shouldn’t have to stay here and play for you. “This supporting the player, and creating an emotional investment with enthusiasts who already have the women’s leagues, will sow the seeds for audience expansion in the coming years. After all, if there’s one thing the women’s leagues have understood is that creating a Fan Base is a long game.