Britain has been equating medals with success, and confusing that success with national wellbeing. This hard-headed philosophy loses sight of what sport is meant to stand for
We've been hearing a lot about women's cricket recently, haven't we? Updates on the Ashes, which England won, and prominent television coverage of the World T20 in Bangladesh, where Australia gained some revenge in the final. Now, right off the bat, it must be noted that this interest is long overdue and absolutely the least it should be. But it does start you thinking: why now? England's women cricketers have been pioneers for a while and the best team in the world for most of the past decade. So what changed?
There have to be multiple contributing factors, beginning with an overall increased awareness of women's sport in Britain. Bouncing off the Olympics and Paralympics in 2012, the argument that there is no appetite for watching women compete has been shown resoundingly to be misinformed. Historically, around 5% of media coverage has been dedicated to female sports the majority of it tennis but last year the BBC broadcast more than 1,000 hours of women's competition, almost 20% of their sports coverage.
Continue reading... Reported by guardian.co.uk 1 hour ago.
We've been hearing a lot about women's cricket recently, haven't we? Updates on the Ashes, which England won, and prominent television coverage of the World T20 in Bangladesh, where Australia gained some revenge in the final. Now, right off the bat, it must be noted that this interest is long overdue and absolutely the least it should be. But it does start you thinking: why now? England's women cricketers have been pioneers for a while and the best team in the world for most of the past decade. So what changed?
There have to be multiple contributing factors, beginning with an overall increased awareness of women's sport in Britain. Bouncing off the Olympics and Paralympics in 2012, the argument that there is no appetite for watching women compete has been shown resoundingly to be misinformed. Historically, around 5% of media coverage has been dedicated to female sports the majority of it tennis but last year the BBC broadcast more than 1,000 hours of women's competition, almost 20% of their sports coverage.
Continue reading... Reported by guardian.co.uk 1 hour ago.