Is ESPN Really the Women’s Sports Network? A Content Analysis of ESPN’s Internet Coverage of the Australian Open

Abstract

A major topic of analysis in sport has been the gender gap and hegemonic masculinity that have historically been present in the media. Following Cunningham’s rationale of analyzing sports that are as gender equal as possible, this current study examines the coverage of the Australian Open on ESPN’s website. The findings reveal that although ESPN emphasized the men’s game quantitatively, it did not give it more prominence proportionally. On one hand, despite having journalists on-site to cover the women’s tournament and despite not being limited by airtime, ESPN.com frames the men’s game as more important than the women’s game in the amount of coverage dedicated to each gender. On the other hand, there is no gender difference in terms of production value, which is in striking opposition to the previous literature about gender media coverage in sport.