Look at all the amazing things said at the NWSL Diversity and Inclusion in Media panel
On Wednesday, May 20th, Meg Linehan of the Athletic hosted a panel on diversity in NWSL media, a breakout idea from an earlier panel about women in sports business. For about an hour, Meg talked to Bria Felicien, Stephanie Yang, and our own Sandra Herrera about a variety of things, from personal barriers in the world of sports media, to best practices, to what the league can do to support a multi-cultural fanbase.
The discussion was long and wide-ranging, but I tried to get as much of it down as I could, because these are things worth reading about. Edited for length and clarity.
On personal barriers to entry into the world of sports
"From where I started to now, it's just been kind of the belief that I belonged in this space. Going from making the conscious decision to go from a casual viewer, to noticing the content I was consuming around women's soccer and the voices behind that. I realized that it wasn’t necessarily coming from people with multi-cultural backgrounds, or from queer backgrounds, and just finally making the decision to say that "yeah, I belong in this space too"" - SH
"I think it’s opportunity, and financially being able to afford to spend my time doing this. I've always wanted to do women's sports, but I remember (being encouraged) not to pigeon-hole myself. I always had like three jobs, and its exhausting, and it all comes back to financially being able to do this. And then the opportunity. I think I’m really good, I'm really talented, but it took me a while to realize that I wasn’t getting opportunities. You work unpaid jobs to prove yourself, but then by the time you get the opportunity you feel like, “I’m tired”. It's just balancing financially being able to sustain doing what you really know you can do." - BF
"The biggest obstacles have been the lack of actual paying jobs, which is a systemic problem that has a lot of larger factors. I didn't know this was a job that was possible for me - I came to this as more of a casual sports fan coming out of the early 2000’s. I went to law school; I was going to be a lawyer. Law school was actually when I got into writing little recaps, starting with the (Boston) Breakers. Then the more I saw the industry, the more I was like “Oh, this is something I’d like to do”. Up until isolation hit, I was still on and off working part time at a second job. One of the structural issues here is the lack of money, where there is one full-time women’s soccer writer in the United States, and she just waved at us..in her little glasses (editor note: it’s Meg!).
All the people you see giving you women’s soccer coverage are doing it part-time. It’s a second, it’s a third job. So that’s my personal barrier, that I was super lucky to be able to find a job that was willing to be flexible enough that I could kind of make my own hours, and cobble that together with freelance work. And I’ll be real with you, I had a little bit of help from my family as well. If I didn’t have that I would probably have had to be like “I can’t afford to do this, I have to find a real full time job” - SY
Meg also dropped some pretty harrowing stats about the percentages of women and women of color in America's newsrooms, from a survey done in 2017 by the APSE
Out of 75 newspapers and websites, with 496 reporters in the survey, 359 self-identified as men. That left 48 White women, four Black women, two Latina women and two Asian women. For sports editors, out of 80 total, 63 were White men, five White women, two Latina women, one Asian woman, and not a single Black woman. That's 90% of all editors being white men, and 88.5% of all reporters were men.
"I can speak from working at a newspaper - no one’s thinking about us. I can just be honest. There are so many stories I’ve submitted and got published and they're like “Oh ok, I had no idea this was happening”. That's really it. Not only is nobody thinking about us, and we kind of have to fight for the type of coverage any other sport would get. You have to prove that this is worth time, or you do it in your free time. That’s the biggest thing, nobody’s thinking about us. I don’t even know why, but they’re just not." - BF
"It’s structural. Nobody thinks about us, so they don’t create the coverage, so the coverage doesn’t happen, so no one wants to read it, and no one assigns it, and when they do it’s like “is the NWSL gonna die? Is this the year?!” I think we understand the structural issue happening here, perpetuated by our dumb capitalist misogynist system. Welcome to the chat, comrades" - SY
The conversation then turned to outreach, and best practices. What can be done to make both the big and little changes to help the NWSL reflect a multi-cultural community?
"In terms of the league, I think there just needs to be an active and visible outreach. NWSL has a very unique opportunity in that it's still such a very young league that’s still growing. This league has a real opportunity in front of it to shape the way it wants to be, and attract the people it wants to attract, and grow the type of fanbase that it wants to see. One that’s inclusive, one that’s multicultural, that has queer spaces, and is accepting of trans fans etc. So it's young enough, and it's still in its beginning stages where it can help shape that. For me, that’s what’s going to make this league stand out against other traditional sports leagues. That’s what’s going to make this league more badass than any other league in the world.
In terms of writing, I feel that for some of us there is that sense of responsibility to put out the stories that we're putting out, and build the readership that we’re building. It is laborsome to ask that of Black, Indigenous Women of Color (BIWOC), of Queer women, because they’re already doing so much. Bria talked about how she had three jobs, I can relate. It happens, on top of all that I have to grow an audience, but it kind of comes with the territory." - SH
Steph advocated for some basic detective work from those in league positions. Look up youth leagues in diverse areas of your community, reach out to youth advocacy groups. Take the time to use the internet to your advantage and make the extra effort to reach demographics that aren't coming to you
"I have an editorial policy. If you have a story that’s not specifically about a particular player, but is a team story - for example the USWNT - don’t default to your header picture being of a white player. You might be tempted to say “this story is about the team, and who’s the most famous player on the team, well it’s probably Alex Morgan or Megan Rapinoe”. But don’t default always to a white player. You have to change your thinking, and really work on constantly confronting your impulse. Who’s popular, why are they popular? If we go strictly on performance, Crystal Dunn should be the Michael Jordan of this team. She is, performance-wise, but she should be raking in millions of dollars, and she’s not." - SY
Bria mentioned how expensive it can feel to even be a fan of this sport, including $100 replica jerseys and cost of traveling to games
"I was offered a post-grad internship with a sports team, and they also offered me to help me find a part-time job in the same offer, because they weren’t paying. It’s the same thing for coverage, so on every level it’s that issue that if there is an opportunity who can participate in it. Then retaining people comes after that, because I may be here but I don’t feel supported or like my voice is heard, and all these other things. It still starts at money for me. Money is the gateway for access." - BF
"When you're engaging with potential partners, it's about advocating for X amount of dollars towards the type of new outreach that you're trying to bring in. We talk a lot about wanting new fans, who are more casual and are Millenials, and casting a wide net, and that's great. But in targeting those specific areas, if you aren't also thinking about diverting that money towards multi-cultural neighborhoods, then you're doing it wrong. It's not just about getting that money, its about how you spend it" - SH
All three panelists talked about how much work they had to create in order to get their first paid piece (it was a lot), and even after that they discussed how most payment comes in terms of stipends, meant more for covering game-day expenses rather than help make this a viable career. Meg and Steph also talked about their experiences in World Cup press rooms, and how difficult it was to even get opportunities to ask questions.
The discussion turned to editors and comms managers who argue they can only call on who is in the room (mostly white men)
"My counter-question to that is, why don't you follow more women of color, queer writers, why aren't you following more black writers, because they exist. If you're not following BIWOC who are writers, who are content creators, find a way to do so. I would say that Queer women, BIWOC, are the best storytellers and content creators - full stop. I don't care who's been around the longest or who has the most bylines. The content that I've taken in that has been the best in covering this league and covering this sport has come from those types of women. So I say that a lot when people ask "what is the problem and how to we fix it" is that you have to amplify those voices. If you don't see it, or you don't think it exists, you have to make it exist" - SH
"My internal conflict is - do we even want to break into these places? Are women's soccer fans actually reading these traditional outlets anyway, because they're tired of it? It is a platform, and I've been thinking about this a lot in the last couple months. People are already kind of done with these (publications). Fans want these traditional outlets to cover this sport, but its a cycle where you get a one-off piece, and it doesn't really work so they say "well we tried" and nobody comes back. So how can I fund, or help sustain, this operation that's doing what we want to see. So if you see me go to business school, know that's what I'm doing" - BF
They also discussed the concern that as the sport grows, opportunities will be given to men from more traditional sports backgrounds that can 'learn the space', rather than the women who have been living in the space for years
"There is a push-pull, when someone is reaching out, and they tend to have a similar background, a more multi-cultural background - you want to make sure that you're looking behind and reaching back. As opposed to a person who is parachuting into the space and putting themselves in a good position to learn and capitalize. Within that, well, you also had access to the parachute, when some of us only had access to life jackets. You second-guess for a second. Do you actually need my help? Or are you trying to access my knowledge and my labor?" - SH
"It's gotta come from both directions. From the bottom up, people have realize that this is not a job that anybody can do - and part of that comes from a disrespect for women's sports. This idea that this is this fun little thing that you can learn on the fly. And then from the top down, as women's sports coverage becomes more prestigious, which is fed into women's sports itself becoming more prestigious, it is sadly tied into how much money is on the table" - SY
They briefly talked social media (mute mute mute), and Sandra specifically spoke about allyship
"When it comes to the online garbage, you have a choice to either engage with it or not engage with it. And I get it if you don't want to engage. It's important to have a support system, and if you see some clownery sometimes you talk about it in private and call it a day. But trolls are out there, and you see some of that toxic stuff online because they want the reaction. And it's very easy to sit here and say walk away and ignore it, but you're also human. So when people talk about being a better ally - it needs to be White women, it needs to be Non-Black women, who are also within this space. We talk about the patriarchy, and white men, but right behind that is white women. We need y'all on board. The choices that you make are reflected within this space that you consider yourself a part of." - SH
Finally, we got to the "how do we fix it" question: it's complicated. It's difficult for the individual to address systemic issues on their own.
"I said earlier that the NWSL has an opportunity to shape what they want to shape, and that includes building a fanbase that they want to look reflective of the league they're playing in. So they do need to target those communities. It's very easy to say that everyone is welcome, but then you look in the crowd and you say "where?". So you should get in touch with local groups, and many supporters groups are doing good work in trying to lay down those relationships (shoutout to Black Fires). It's important to utilize those spaces, and I would encourage the front offices to notice the groundwork that their fans are already doing, and put your money behind that and support. That's what it's going to take. Everyone has to work together to push that forward" - SH
"If you have any little bit of structural power, it's constant self-confrontation. Constant. Every single time you make a decision, you have to interrogate your motives and their effects. Thats super tiring - I get it. But editors, you have to meet with staff and ask what they'd like to see. You have to do your best to get BIWOC into positions of structural power, and you have to make a little bit more effort to do your research rather than just asking "where, where are they?" Mobilize your fans, if you're a club. Women's soccer has a different fanbase than many sports leagues, and in general your fans can be a huge source of leverage in going out and doing community work. Maybe that means scheduling a monthly meeting and going over a diversity initiative. Just be willing to do the self-interrogation. Sometimes you're not going to like what you find (I have done some goofs), but the point is to learn" - SY
"I think if you do have the power, and you do have the opportunity - I think about how powerful working in a media institution and telling stories is, because it literally shapes the perception of a group or a type of person. So think about who you're telling a story about, and how you're talking about them - that's the biggest thing. The way you're talking about them is how the fans are going to talk about them. I just remember reading this comment about a black soccer player where I thought "do I even want to be here?", and this was even before the AD Franch incident in Utah - I literally had to think "I just got here, and I'm tired". So you have to think not only about the way you talk about people, but how quick are you to critique them, how quick are you to talk about how smart a player is versus another player? So if you are already able to talk about people, you have to consider that - because it is powerful." - BF