Equity Achieved? A Longitudinal Examination of Biological Sex Representation in the NBC Olympic Telecast (2000–2018)

Abstract

This report focuses on (a) how National Broadcasting Company’s (NBC) primetime Olympic telecasts have presented athletes competing as male and female, specifically in relation to the 2018 Pyeonchang Winter Olympic coverage and (b) how the Pyeongchang coverage fits into a longitudinal analysis of the past two decades of NBC’s coverage. Results show that women athletes received the majority of clock-time and name mentions during the 2018 coverage of the games, continuing a trend toward increased focus on women’s sports and athletics over the two-decade composite. The fact that American women are also winning a higher proportion of the medals at the Olympics is argued to be the most primary driver of this change over time. Implications and ramifications of the findings are also extrapolated.