Sports centered
by Tyler Jane Barley

Some girls grow up never learning the fun of watching and playing sports. This was considered such a problem 20 years ago that some entrepreneurs presented entire seminars aimed at teaching young female executives how to talk sports. The smart guys charged $200 a head and sold out. Luckily, I just don't think that's nearly so necessary today.

And while there are many reasons, one of the big ones is ESPN's Sportscenter. A show which has always been more than jocks reading off scores like "The Sonics crash the Rockets, 95-77". Indeed, as often as not the foibles of sport are given as much attention as the hairy-chested macho indulgences.

Sunday night, ESPN celebrated the 20,000th presentation of Sportscenter. Now, in all fairness, it does seem odd that number 20,000 would just happen to occur on a Sunday night at 11 p.m. EDT. The most-watched Sportscenter of the week. That sort of convenient coincidence stretches credulity, you see. But true to form, the show admitted this, getting Nykesha Sayles (the UConn basketball star whose school scoring record has been in some dispute due to as scorer's mistake) to "catch" the network in the lie.

Curious, I pulled out my calculator. Estimating 3 shows a day since September 7, 1979, the 20,000th show would have occurred at 2 a.m. on April 22, 1998. An early morning show on a Wednesday. Not a prime slot. And as the occasional Sportscenter gets wiped out by a late game or some weird awards show, there's probably no way to know for sure. A lot of shows, anyway. Probably more than 20,000.

And because ESPN has changed the way people talk about sports, inserting some cleverness and cultural references into the mix (Stuart Scott's preference for Public Enemy catchphrases, for example), the world of sports has become more female-friendly. Woman can appreciate the grace and splendor of Michael Jordan as well (if not better) than most men. It's the arcane talk of statistics and play-by-play memories of past games which bores us to tears. If the Worley boys give me one more rendition of the night George Brett hit a home run off Goose Gossage, I'll shoot them. I simply don't care. I've never liked the Royals (they stole their logo from the Dodgers, an infinitely cooler franchise), and such devotion to a single random act borders on pathetic.

But the ESPN approach has always been entertainment first. After all, it is the Entertainment and SPorts Network. No more sumo rodeo, but they still re-run the World's Strongest Man shows. And they're happy to make fun of such silly things during Sportscenter. Very few subjects are sacred. I even saw Dan Patrick make fun of Cal Ripken once.

So I watch. As do plenty of women my age. And these days a lot of women have played (and are playing) competitive sports. And this is generally considered a good thing by society. As an added bonus, some women are getting paid to play sports, and more fans (of all ages and genders) are paying to watch women play sports. There are two major women's pro basketball leagues in the U.S., and there are smaller pro leagues for many other sports. After the Women's World Cup (to be played in the U.S. next summer), there will be a major women's soccer league on these shores.

A lot of this has to do with changing societal attitudes toward women. It's now okay for a guy to look at a woman and admire her physical strength and not her bouncing chest. It's okay for a guy to seriously compare the skills of Mia Hamm and Eric Wynalda. Guys can buy season tickets to women's college sports and not be accused of some ulterior, prurient interest.

And at the forefront of all this are the outlets for sport. Particularly ESPN and Sportscenter. In fact, ESPN has cultivated more female sports broadcasting talent than every other network combined. Okay, so at least one was a Miss America. Most weren't and aren't. As Dan Patrick or Keith Olbermann wrote in their memoir The Big Show, you don't have to be beautiful to be on the air. You just have to be not ugly. Of course, most ESPN talent (male and female) is well above the "not ugly" baseline. It is, after all, a broadcast network. And while Mary Carillo and Robin Roberts have been commenting on tennis matches for years (Roberts calling WNBA and women's college basketball games as well), it's gratifying to hear a woman in the color commentary slot during the NBA playoffs (Cheryl Miller sat in on some TNT games this year). A couple years ago, many moneyed alumni at Tennessee hoped that Pat Summit, the most successful women's college basketball coach ever, come over to the men's side and coach that Volunteer team.

I could pull a Virginia Slims, but I think you get the idea. Cheers to Sportscenter, however many shows it has broadcast. Thanks for bringing women into the conversation. Sure, it's only good business sense, but then, beer companies still haven't figured that out.

Tyler Jane Barley would like to point out that the Devil Rays do not play in Tampa (as the AP dateline for the first two games at Tropicana Field read). They play in St. Petersburg in the dome formerly known as Thunder. When seen from the air, Tropicana Field's new pink on orange paint job gives an unfortunate breast-like appearance.

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