ESPN personality Sarah Spain said attempts to bring women’s sports programming to the network have been thwarted, despite having several sponsors on board.
Spain has worked for ESPN for 20 years and has made a number of controversial statements about promoting female sports broadcasting, putting her at odds with others in the industry who have accused her of bias.
“Richard Deitch’s Sports MediaSpain alleged that ESPN had repeatedly rejected her requests to plan women’s sports programming on the network.
“In most places, it’s still middle-aged white men who come out on top.”
“Between [NWSL’s Chicago] “I still sometimes think, ‘Oh man, I wish I had a billion dollars,’ because I’ve pitched the Red Stars and ESPN so many times to do a women’s sports show and never heard back,” Spain said. That’s a terrible announcement.
The reporter then criticized executives for not “buying in” and researching how profitable such programming would be.
“The people at the top of most places are still middle-aged white men. They have to buy in, they have to do the work, they have to read the data, they have to update the analytics. They have to recognize that they’re being told, ‘You’re years behind on a major economic opportunity,’ and yet they don’t think of it as charity. That’s what’s really frustrating to me.”
Despite claims that the show had multiple sponsors in mind, the network still reportedly rejected it. Spain added that one sponsor was “willing to give ESPN a lot of money,” and three other sponsors also expressed interest, but the Disney-owned network still rejected them.
But while she appreciated ESPN’s commitment to women’s sports, she said the network could do “more.”
“ESPN does more for women’s sports than any other network in terms of airtime, rights packages, coverage, but we can do more. We can do things differently. And I think that’s the biggest missed opportunity.”
“What we need is an actual show with a host whose role is to watch the show and take stock of the situation,” she added.
Spain calls the Tampa Bay Rays baseball player “Prejudiced People“I don’t have a gay pride patch on my uniform.”
“We need to stop studiously avoiding the issue because we’re trying to prevent people who are being biased from seeking exemptions, when the very people who are the targets of that bias are the ones who are suffering as a result of being biased,” she told Fox News.
She also criticized radio executives for not making enough effort to reach out to female and gay audiences, and said the “old white male” audience was dying out and there would be no audience.
“If you’re so worried about scaring off your existing fan base of old white guys, remember that they’re going to get older and die off and then there’ll be no one left,” Spain said. 2020“Perhaps we should also reach out to other demographics, such as people of color, women, and LGBTQ+ people.”
According to her Website Spain will also launch a new daily women’s sports podcast on iHeart Radio and is reportedly planning to publish a book in early 2025.
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