Call it the Women's Sports Effect

In any women's sport, when all else fails, resort to the age-old lowest common denominator...

Just a few days back there was lots of talk regarding a woman soon playing in the NBA.
http://bubravesblogger.blogspot.com/2009/12/women-in-nba.html

But the simple truth is that very few women's sports draw well, and once the novelty wears off, and outside of the oddity of some of the sports....then the pro leagues have failed due to lack of viewers. Even the COLLEGE version of women's athletics would have long ago languished and even fallen by the wayside, had they not been bolstered and legislated onto life support by the trendy Title IX.

Not one single women's athletic endeavor at any level of college is self-sustaining or self-supporting. Every one draws revenues from the much more successful and lucrative men's sports.

But now a few smart people have figured it out...
when the sport cannot draw interest on its own, and when the level of competition cannot get interest from the fans of its own merit...then ...

SELL SEX!!!

Yup - that's right, turn to the old gimmick (if you can call it that) that's as old as Adam and Eve. Just parade out the sexually suggestive stuff and just maybe, at least for a while, it'll get some fans through the door or butts in the seats.

Here are some examples...

-Of course we all know how the better looking players in just about every sport are highlighted incessantly...especially if they are blonde like Anna Kournikova, Maria Sharapova, Natalie Gulbis, softball pitcher Jenny Finch, etc....
But even athletes like Candace Parker and sideline babes like Erin Andrews are all too often the story for their looks rather than their on-field performances.
How about the Sports Illustrated piece on Danica Patrick that basically dwelt on her bod and her tattoos?

-women soccer players who rip off their jerseys and prance in their sports bras get more press and publicity than all of the other women in the sport combined in all of history!
If you even just try to do a google search for Brandi Chastain just to see her soccer accomplishments, this is what all the searches take you to...
the one moment that defines her career above everything else combined!
http://www.sportsgirlsplay.com/images/brandi-chastain.jpg

Now, if they really want to be taken seriously....especially with the arguments like maybe a woman getting into the NBA in the near future, then how much damage does this short-term ploy of selling sex cause?
Will people see through the marketing and realize that the best players in any sport are no where near as popular or successful in making money and getting endorsements as the blonde babes like Kournikova.
100 pro tennis players were better players and higher ranked, yet Kournikova's matches always seem to get on TV, as do Sharapova's.

Here are some more examples, but there's a growing number all the time turning to this hot technique...

Women's hoops and media guides getting sexier-
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/womenshoopsblog/2010251932_womens_hoops_media_guides_and.html


What's the message here...and what do these women look like their marketing, basketball?
http://www.seminolehoops.com/team1.shtml

I agree, the girls are pretty, but I think the message they are sending is come watch our team because they are babes....
and maybe next year when they might not be such a great looking bunch of players, then the fans will stop coming?

One of the individual pics even looks like this player has a 2nd night time job... ahem...
http://www.seminolehoops.com/teamkayli.shtml

This one even seems to be mimicking a certain, famous, revealing Britney Spears pose that's all over the internet...
http://www.seminolehoops.com/teamlele.shtml

I got a kick out of the one for the male assistant coach....and apparently so did he, he's really laughing!
He's also doing the spread-leg Britney Spears pose.
http://www.seminolehoops.com/coach3.shtml

A few more comments...

http://sportsmedicine.about.com/b/2008/04/04/sex-sells-but-should-it-sell-womens-sports.htm

http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/story?id=128546&page=1