Interrogating inequalities in Sports Media: Examining gender representation in espn

after watching ESPN this week i have found that most of the stories shown are about male athletes. very seldom is a woman shown. i have watched ESPN almost every day for a very long time and it has always been that women are almost never shown. every once and a while you will get a short discussion on women s basketball but other than that there is almost nothing. the past week or two has been a little different because of the Olympics. women have been shown more but still not nearly as much as men. the men athletes are the topics of the large discussions and women are much less talked about. when ESPN shows pictures of women, they are usually just a picture of them not in an action shot but men are almost always shown in an action shot. women have never received the same amount of TV time as men. it is very troubling to see that both genders are not equally represented. this is a reason that womens sports are not as popular. they simply do not get the publicity that male sports get. even if it is the exact same sport they still receive less spotlight. according to Valarie Hanson, a professor at st. john fisher college, women have been unfairly portrayed in sports and have never received the same type of publicity that men have. there are many articles that say the exact same thing yet our society still refuses to do anything about this inequality.
sources
http://fisherpub.sjfc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1069&context=ur

Reflecting on the Shame of College Sports: Should NCAA Div 1 Basketball and Football players get paid?

the topic of paying athletes has been a large argument. university and other types of companies are making millions of dollars off of students athletes. the athlete receives no money from their athletic play. Athletes do receive scholarship money but this money does not cover all of there expenses. the athletes cannot get jobs because practices take up all of their time. many athletes come from families of low income and just a little more money would go a long way. we see athletes getting in trouble because they need ways to get money. A few years ago, several Ohio state football players got in serious trouble for selling some memorabilia. they did this because they had no other way of getting money. many people do not want to give money because it would ruin the amateurism of the sport. another issue is that it is unfair to sports that are less popular. these sports bring in almost no revenue, so the colleges would be loosing money. colleges with already low incomes would not be able to pay their players thus giving top schools more of an advantage.
i think athletes should be payed more. they work extremely hard and they have no other way of receiving money. they have no time to work because of their practices. these athletes bring in millions of dollars to the school and because of this the players should receive some money for their hard work. they deserve more money because what they get now dose not pay for everything. i would know because i am an athlete and i struggle to pay for everything with the money they give us.
sources
http://www.youniversitytv.com/news-sports/5704-the-pros-and-cons-of-paying-college-athletes
https://learn.colorado.edu/d2l/le/content/59211/viewContent/1457475/View
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/10/the-shame-of-college-sports/308643/

once the cheering stops: the life of a retired pro-athlete

many athletes have a very difficult time with money once they stop playing their sport. pro players are used to having a very large amount of money come in all the time. but once they stop playing they stop getting that money but their spending habits don't change. for some athletes the retired life is very difficult. most players don't save their money like they should but rather they continue to spend their money until they have no more. there are many examples of these types of players. Mike Tyson, Pete Rose, Barry Bonds, and Rulon Gardner to name a few. all of these players filed for bankruptcy. they were not taught how to save their money but rather they spent it all. they could not control themselves once they had a a taste of the good life and this ultimately led to their down fall. us culture tells us that we should spend money and buy things. the "cool" people buy all types of luxurious things. it is not "cool" to save your money but rather spent it. this is why athletes struggle so much when done with their sport. another reason is that many athletes grew up impoverished so once they finally got some money they wanted to spend it. they were never taught how to conserve money because as a kid they never had money to spend. my opinion is that the sports teams need to do a better job of educating the rookies about the financial life. every year we hear of some player falling asleep in the financial meetings. they need to change the meetings so that players will be interested and actually think about their money. athletes need to understand that they will not be playing their sport for very long. the average years played in the NFL is 3.5 years. the players need to use this money to jump start themselves into the business world where they have their real job. i was aware that pro athletes struggled with money. our football coach has told us many times that pro player's have money issues.

sources:

http://msn.foxsports.com/nfl/lists/Athletes-who-went-bankrupt#photo-title=Rulon+Gardner&photo=31327506

http://nflcommunications.com/2011/04/18/what-is-average-nfl-player%E2%80%99s-career-length-longer-than-you-might-think-commissioner-goodell-says/

http://i.perezhilton.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/wenn27339121423__oPt.jpg

Sport, Politics and the Olympics

The 1936 Olympics was a perfect example of politics in sports. The games were hosted by a Nazi Germany lead by Hitler. Hitler wanted to promote his views of the superiority of the Aryan race. He was going to do this by showing Nazi propaganda on the closed circuit television system and radio. This system would reach 41 countries and Hitler saw this as the perfect way to spread his propaganda. At first Hitler wanted to make a rule that Jews and blacks would not be able to participate in the games but he reversed that rule in fear of countries boycotting the games. In a way to "clean up" Berlin, Hitler had all the gypsies arrested and taken to a concentration camp. We can see that Hitler used the Olympics to promote his propaganda. Everyone in the world knew that Hitler was against the Jews and nothing showed this better than his actions at these games. 

One of sage and Eitzens 5 political uses of sport is being a vehicle for propaganda. The Nazis very much so used the games as a vehicle  At first they wanted to ban all Jews and blacks and show antisemitic views on the television circuit. They had put up signs all around the Olympics saying no Jews wanted. they were trying to spread their views all around the world and they were using sports to do this.
Unfortunately sport is not devoid of political interference. Politics are all around sports as as shown by the 1936 Olympics  Even today there are political views around sports. the film that we watched in class showed us that there are military all around sports and that gives a political view. Even at last years super bowl, a commentator came on at half time and told the nation that we should have gun control. sports are very full of political interference. 
sources
http://www.bl.uk/sportandsociety/exploresocsci/politics/articles/melbourne.pdf
http://www.milliyet.com.tr/2000/08/30/spor/spo00.html