Can someone please help me understand what Jay Clark means?

[KristyJ]

So you are saying that gymnastics is a "only women can be involved" sport? Only to be enjoyed by women, only women should have a say in the sport? You don't see the sexism of that? Should all male coaches be eliminated?

Regardless, it has nothing to do with the marketing of men's sports and trying to make women "conform" to men's views. It has to do with the macro trends of college sports, of which men's college football and basketball are at the forefront. Scan any college football message board and you will find plenty of fans bemoaning changes, complaining of how these changes are turning away the fans, and making the sport unwatchable. Yet these sports continue to do better from a TV revenue standpoint than they have ever done before. The SEC this week just announced that the TV revenue checks to EACH school was around $53 million (the Big10 was comparable, all the other conferences were in the $10-15 range for context). You would be naive to believe that that type of money does not get a seat at the table when it comes time to planning what the "product" is going to look like on TV. That's all I am saying, we can complain all we want about the purity of the sport, but its not going to move the needle until TV believes it will.

Rather the opposite. I am saying that women's sports should be treated with the same seriousness we give to men's sports when it comes to things like accuracy and scoring. Have you heard of football changing rules to make the scoring higher by ignoring details? Have you seen TV tell football that that one inch between the ball and the goal line actually doesn't matter because a score is more exciting? Have you seen basketball executives say that the three point line can be fudged if it makes for a more exciting game? It's ridiculous to water down a sport to make it appealing, and I would argue that anyone saying it applies more to a women's sport is saying something extremely sexist.

 

[Puffin]

Rather the opposite. I am saying that women's sports should be treated with the same seriousness we give to men's sports when it comes to things like accuracy and scoring. Have you heard of football changing rules to make the scoring higher by ignoring details? Have you seen TV tell football that that one inch between the ball and the goal line actually doesn't matter because a score is more exciting? Have you seen basketball executives say that the three point line can be fudged if it makes for a more exciting game? It's ridiculous to water down a sport to make it appealing, and I would argue that anyone saying it applies more to a women's sport is saying something extremely sexist.

Well there was that time in the 1990s where US football/soccer authorities lobbied FIFA to get the goals made bigger - there argument being that there would be more goals which would make the game more interesting to US TV audiences ....

 

[Hatsumomo]

Well there was that time in the 1990s where US football/soccer authorities lobbied FIFA to get the goals made bigger - there argument being that there would be more goals which would make the game more interesting to US TV audiences ....

And yet, none of those goals would be made by the US men's soccer team...

 

[ArnoldRimmer]

Especially weird when you think the US had that succession of strong goalkeepers.

 

[KristyJ]

Well there was that time in the 1990s where US football/soccer authorities lobbied FIFA to get the goals made bigger - there argument being that there would be more goals which would make the game more interesting to US TV audiences ....

There's still a difference between that and just, like, not applying the rules or calling a glancing blow or somesuch a goal instead.