Female Millenial Interest in and Consumption of Sports Media and Imperatives and Pressures in the Sports Media Market

This research is an exploratory study comparing the interview responses of sports and sports media professionals to the questionnaire responses of female Millenials from a sample population of undergraduates at three universities in different regions of the U.S. The data reveals the structural barriers in sports media that deter female sports media consumption and which result from the hegemonic impositions of pre-Title IX sports cultural constructs on the production of sports media. Moreover, the data shows the fluidity of the boundaries of the term ?sports fan? and the conflict between how interview participants personally define ?sports fan? versus how they deploy the term within the walls of the sports media industry. Although sports media professionals want to reach a broad fan base that includes more women, what shows up in sports media is always the product of complex negotiations impacted by constraining factors such as socio-cultural expectations, advertiser pressures, and the limitations of research findings. However, sports media organizations should not be dismissed from taking responsibility for the societal implications of the content they produce; future topics from research and what sports media can do to appeal more to females are discussed