BY JAMES HOWEY
CBS Sports Network will premiere the first ever all-women sports show this coming Tuesday at 9 p.m. The show will feature younger and older women journalists, TV personalities, and former athletes. The show will be called “We Need To Talk.” Allie LaForce, Andrea Kremer, Tracy Wolfson and Lisa Leslie are some notables in the crew. For me, personally, this idea is intriguing and somewhat encouraging. I think women covering sports is great and only can help sports journalism. The growing presence of women in sports journalism has helped build diversity in what was once primarily a male-dominated industry.
But I’m not sure that an all women sports show is desperately needed. There are plenty of women in the sports media world that excel at their jobs and they certainly do more than hold their own with the men in the business. Just this Saturday, ESPN’s Samantha Ponder was given a chance to comment on the Jameis Winston situation during the highly watched “College GameDay” morning show. Ponder gave a very insightful and educated take on the issue even though the segment wasn’t even planned until the show.
At Roger Goodell’s press conference on Friday, CNN and Turner Sports reporter Rachel Nichols grilled Goodell on a number of issues about the NFL’s handling of the Ray Rice incident, including the fact that Robert Mueller, who the league hired to investigate the incident, has a long standing relationship with the league. Nichols was the star of the press conference and someone cleverly changed her occupation on her Wikipedia page to “Owner of Roger Goodell.”
I’m not saying that this show isn’t an important step, but from what I see on a daily basis, women are already a big part of sports journalism and contribute significantly to the business. I will say I’m not a fan of the title. I don’t like the implication that women are desperate and needing coverage when they get plenty and take full advantage of it. I do hope the show is successful enough to stay on the air, because if the show fails we will unfortunately hear from some “idiot-nobody-sports-guy” who will say “Oh they’re just girls they can’t talk sports.” Which if people look around at ESPN, FOX, CBS and NBC is simply not true.
Contact James Howey, sports editor, jhowey@jccc.edu