nowadays men’s sports are given far more attention by the society compared to women’s sports. What are the reasons for that? Do you think this is a positive or a negative development?

When looking at TV ratings, athlete pay, and crowd attendance, it is clear that male sports receives considerably more attention than their female equivalents. There are some basic underlying factors that give rise to this phenomenon, and these must be assessed first before a view can be offered on whether the greater focus on male sports is a positive. An obvious reason for the disparity in attention is that men’s physical advantage over women makes the sports they play more entertaining to watch. For example, fans pay large amounts of money to attend a live NBA game to watch elite male athletes dunk a ball, while crowd numbers at women’s NBA games is much lower because the entertainment value is not as high. People want to watch their sporting idols perform feats that seem almost impossible, which is something that male athletes have a greater natural ability in. A second crucial reason is simply profit motive. In other words, many sports teams are multi-million dollar businesses and this business is driven by advertising and merchandise sales, which are both driven in turn by ratings. As a team or sport becomes more profitable it will attract sponsors and athletes will be contracted to endorse products, and this all acts to draw more focus to the sport. While it is true that there are female athletes who attract attention, there numbers are much fewer and they are often promoted based on sex appeal rather than sporting talent. Overall, issues of gender are often controversial and it is difficult to say whether a greater focus on male sports is beneficial or undesirable. What is true is that young boys and girls should be given the opportunity to play sport to be healthy and potentially successful, but that success needs to be determined by what people want to see, not what they are told they should watch.