Missing In Action

Abstract

This analysis follows up work in the late 1970s analyzing Sports Illustrated’s coverage of women’s sports in Olympic years 1956, 1960, 1964, 1968, 1972, and 1976. This article analyzes feature articles in the first issue of each month of Sports Illustrated beginning in 1980, with 72 issues reviewed for total number of articles per issue, sex of athlete featured in each article, number of pages per article, and type of sport covered in each article. An exploration of photographs accompanying the articles is included. In all, 569 articles were reviewed. Although there was an increase in feature coverage of women’s sports in the early 1990s, the change in coverage for the entire period compared with the period analyzed previously was not significant in percentage of articles about women and percentage of pages devoted to coverage of women’s sports. The percentage of photos featuring women dropped dramatically from 1994 to 1996.