Up until the year of 1971, men were the only gender doing sports broadcasting and commentary regularly for popular sports shows and broadcasts. Today, we can see via ESPN, SportsCenter, and other mass sports media broadcast outlets that women are beginning to dominate the industry.
Social media has also opened up sports broadcasting in the sense that social media users can gather relevant information on their favorite sports teams in real time by following their favorite sports anchors. It is now shown that female sports broadcasters are making leaps in the social media side of sports communication. Examples are Erin Andrews (FOX Sports, 1.8M followers on Instagram, 2.6M followers on Twitter), Rachel Nichols (ESPN, 1M followers on Instagram, 1.1M followers on Twitter), Charissa Thompson (FOX Sports, 418k followers on Instagram, 331.9k followers on Twitter), and Maria Taylor (NBC Sports, 312k followers on Instagram, 298.3k followers on Twitter).
This is just an interesting topic to follow as the number of women in the sports broadcasting industry are growing. It is also personally interesting to me as this is an industry option that I am pursuing and getting a job may be easier for me now than it would have been in the past.
