“Monday night football won’t be shown this week, instead women’s field hockey will be aired. ” Monday night football has been a long lasting American pastime and a change like this would tend to really shock and upset millions of dedicated football fans. This group, made up of mostly men gather round the tube each week for a chance to watch men running around a field carrying a ball and running into each other. The situation I stated earlier probably won’t happen, at least not in the near future. Men’s sports still seem to dominate, and in order to allow this to be changed, certain steps must be taken.
First of all, the situation needs to be addressed as a serious problem, then those people affected need to be determined. Next, the cause of the problem needs to be addressed and finally, it is time to think of solutions. So, first of all, is there really a problem? Why does it matter that men get all the attention in sports? That’s the way it has been for hundreds of years dating back to the first Olympics. But then again why should men get all the attention, women work just as hard as men at their sports, why not give them some credit?
Men and women are treated differently in sports ranging from the size of budgets, the number of scholarships given, and in how many athletes are participating in sports. Men’s athletic budgets are without a doubt a lot higher than women’s athletic budgets. On average men’s athletic budgets are nearly five times that of women’s (Moline 18). An example of this is at schools that offer women’s sports of field hockey and volleyball that have budgets less than 20% of that which is allocated for men’s sports. Overall operating funds for women’s sports are about three times that of men’s.
Funding for individual sports is different but when all added together men receive a lot more money for their sports than women. Another difference between men’s and women’s sports is the number of athletic scholarships given to athletes of differing sexes. Male athletes, as a whole, receive twice the number of scholarships that women athletes receive. In a survey conducted by the NCAA( national collegiate athletic association) of 253 division 1 schools, athletic scholarship funding was 69. 5% for men and 30. 5% for women.
The actual average amount of money given for scholarships was $849,130 for men and $372,800 for women. In 1992, division 1 schools with football teams were allowed to offer 92 scholarships per season. This exceeds any other sport, men or women’s, in the number of scholarships available. When everything is added together male athletes receive more scholarship money than female athletes. This is another example of the inequality between the sexes. Yet another difference between men and women’s collegiate sports is the number of participants.
The ratio of men to women at most colleges is usually one to one, but sports participation is usually two to one favoring men. Men’s athletic teams are generally bigger than women’s teams. This could be attributed to the bigger budgets and more scholarships that would allow men’s teams to be larger. This two to one ratio shows that participation is not equal and therefore women are discriminated against. These examples of inequality in college sports shows that there is a problem and it has been a problem for some time.
Women have less money budgeted for their sports, less scholarship money, and there are a lot fewer female athletes than male athletes. In conclusion, I strongly agree that men sports are still getting more attention than women sports on a professional, also men sports are constantly getting paid more than women in college sports. I understand that there are more men playing college sports than women but that still is no reason for them to get paid more. So as a result of this issue continuing to cause problems their needs to be some strong adjustments made very soon.
