Entertaining skills lead to entertaining games. There are countless extremely talented men and women in the sports world, all producing attention grabbing performances. There is never a shortage of talent, resulting in never ending opponents for the players as well as a surplus of entertainment for us. This goes for both genders; however it doesn’t take much to figure out that men’s sports attracts more of an audience than women’s.
Many chalk this up to simple biology–the fact that men are more built for athletics than women and therefore produce better games. And while, yes, this is very true, it is also often true that in women sports their developed skills make up for these physical disadvantages. So if you agree with this, that would mean women’s sports contain more pure skill while men’s are a mix of skill and physical aggression.
Now, of course, male sports require a lot of skill and women’s do require aggression; however, biology does tend to tilt the scale one way or another of what it really takes to be successful in sports. So if women’s sports have many talented individuals, constantly fighting against their physical disadvantages, why do they not bring in more of a crowd of people looking for attention grabbing talent? The biological facts are an overused excuse, so let’s look into some other aspects that are causing these crowd numbers.
It is clear, even in our own school, that people are not just simply looking to see the better team. Look at our Suzies basketball team, for example (fantastic season last year, by the way), who seem to dominate their opponents. For those of you who attended a Suzies basketball game, compare the fan scene to one of a Sammies basketball game. Pretty big difference right? Not to be too blunt, but our men’s basketball team has not come close to accomplishing what the Suzies have, so it is obvious that students don’t just go to the games we believe are going to end in a win.
Now, most of this is unintentional and a lot of it can be chiseled down to the social aspect of the game. Most students don’t really go to these games to watch, in fact not a lot of watching is done. If you have ever attended these games you would agree that it is mostly a place to socialize with your friends and make a few jokes about the opposing team. If we look at it this way, if a bunch of your friends are planning on attending the boy’s soccer game, you’re not going to go to the girls just because you want to. You are going to go wherever the crowd is, because that’s what you’re going for, to hang out with your classmates.
So now, the only question is who is the person at the beginning of the chain of this follow the leader? Could they just be going to support their friend or watch a specific classmate play? This is often the case. However, there are also some psychological reasons we are drawn to male sports, and the simple fact is we don’t really enjoy sports for the talent, it is mostly the physicality of it all that draws us in. And as stated before, female’s biologically just don’t bring as much of it to the court (or field).
As humans, we are psychologically drawn to competition. Through sports we are allowed to witness victory and the agony of defeat all in real time. We are fascinated by the excitement of watching athletes push themselves to the limit to win. Women’s sports provide all of this and skill to their audience; however male sports bring that extra suspense of unpredictable physicality.
Take hockey for example, most of the game is players checking one another against the board, and in some cases ending in fist fights on the ice. In fact most of the time the crowd is waiting for this, they crave the action.
So while, yes, women typically require more developed skills to be great at any sport, it may not shake the misconception that their games are slightly less entertaining.
