No win for Ellyse Perry but how about some media coverage?

This argument is old. Lack of coverage for all women's sport is a disgrace but at the end of the day the media work to demand. When a sitcom isn't getting ratings it's axed. Unfortunately, there is not a high demand for women's sport so wrongly woman's sport suffers. This debate will continue for years and years as the issue is not confined to media coverage but also sponsorships and endorsements not to mention salaries and the fact that more female sports stars have to have a second job (outside of their sport) to support themselves than not. Your argument that Stosur gets more media coverage is simply because women's tennis is run simultaneously with men's tennis at Grand Slams and therefore generates a high demand. However I would argue that had Stosur played until 2am this morning not nearly as many Australians would have stayed up to watch her match as they did for Nick Kyrgios last night. The fact that articles like this are written weekly is a sad state of affairs as it should NOT be the case and our female sports stars deserve the same media coverage, sponsorships and salaries of their male counterparts but unfortunately it's a long way off and while men and women in society have come a long way to equality the same cannot be said for the sporting field. However, while the women's Ashes wasn't a TV highlight I will say I did read many print articles about Perry and the Australian side. The world of social media, particularly twitter, has definitely helped progress the coverage of women's sport as it has with a lot of aspects of news. Here's hoping that in the not so distant future this conversation topic will be null and void as our female sports stars deserve the same level of media attention and sponsorship that is afford to male sportsmen.

Absolutely .

Yeah but Captain's tend to keep on bowlers taking wickets and bring them back from a spell earlier. As it is a one off test I doubt she will burn out On the other hand, there have been allegations previously about a certain bias towards certain players in the Oz women's cricket team. I hope it no longer exists, or was just one player throwing her toys. Replacing homophobia with some form of reverse homophobia is not acceptable in this day and age

I know of Holly Ferling, because I saw an article on her on news.com.au when she was first picked for AUS, she's pretty cute and seems to be a rising star. Haven't seen much of her playing apart from short youtube clips.

There’s this small town in Punjab called Phagwara,where a school claims itself to be of “international standard” and have the photos of Brett Lee,Mike Hussey and Perry as its brand ambassadors in many posters all around the city! People in India barely know any woman cricketer(which is a shame) except 1 or 2 retired names and there i see a beautiful and talented Australian Woman cricketer’s photo in a small town of Punjab.I certainly think she gets a lot of recognition than many other women sportspersons. And as a concerned Indian citizen where crimes against women have risen to scary levels ,i am definitely in favour of these women sportspersons getting more and more recognition.This will have a big impact in the thinking of modern India and hopefully lead to better conditions for women. The women cricket matches are telecasted in India when England and Australia come visiting but the crowd levels are dismal by indian cricketing standards and there is no publicity in either the print or online media.I do hope that many more women sports superstars come up and help their sport get more recognition.

dont mind my comment on the looks of sports persons... my real point was her workload in the test.

interesting conspiracy theory there Jack. Maybe you're right, but many would argue that Watson gets lots of opportunity that he may not have had if he wasn't some poster boy As for Ellyse, I'd agree she's cute, but gorgeous might be pushing it. Sofía Vergara, Evangeline Lilly, Olga Kurylenko?...I think anyone composing a list just based on looks would not see Ellyse at the top. However, a list of attractive women that also have enormous sporting talent? I'd say her duel international roles plus her mousey cuteness would see her as number 1, but these things are always subjective

I know what you're saying, Chris, but there's plenty of shows that are spruiked well ahead of their airing and after initially good ratings become complete flops ("Squizzy" springs to mind). Someone commented the other day that you can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig. Also, there have been plenty of shows cancelled after one series, despite having cult followings, like your one perhaps. (I'm curious to know what that was too.). The reason why some programmes are so popular (Big Brother, KuwtK, numerous talent shows) mystifies me too, but hey, each to their own. I'm sure if the TV moguls thought that women's cricket would be popular to watch they'd give it more airtime. I think women's netball and hockey are far more watchable and played by many more women at grass roots level. Women's football (that's soccer to all you heathens) is also very popular in Australia, but even the women's international standard is not that great when you can watch Arsenal v Man U on Fox. Hell, even the A-League is woeful compared to EPL. Sorry, but it is...

Why should it be up to women to do this? Why don't men as well?

Which show are you talking about, Chris? If it's better than Kardashians (as you seem to imply) then it must be amazing.

P.S. I agree with a few other people here. While I am a fan of Ellyse Perry: She's got serious skills, and on top of that is not bad on the eye either, to talk about Ellyse Perry not getting enough media coverage rather than the women's ashes not getting enough media coverage just shows up that it's all about your crush on Ellyse rather than anything else.

Media coverage and all that is an interesting thing. There is certainly an argument that if it was a product people were interested in then more people would watch it and it would demand mainstream coverage. But the truth is that a huge percentage of the population are sheep who watch what they are told to watch. TV Networks advertise the hell out of upcoming shows saying that they are the best, most popular thing ever that everyone is talking about to try and get people to watch them and it often works. Meanwhile other things that simply aren't promoted come and go without most people knowing about them, and it's not because they aren't good enough, but because they were simply never promoted. Like one of my favourite shows which was axed after 15 episodes on TV. Yet everyone I've ever met who's actually watched the show has absolutely loved it, including people I've shown it to who would otherwise never watch anything in the sorts of genre's of TV show it would likely be categorised in. Then they hate me for introducing them to it when they get to episode 15 and there is no more and they are left feeling empty that they can't watch another 5 seasons of it. It's one of the best TV shows I've ever watched, and apparently it was on Australian TV, but I'd never even heard about it until some time later. That may be why it didn't last. There was no promotion, nobody knew about it, so not enough people watched it and they then axed it. Meanwhile the Kardashians keep on keeping up. The point being, that whether people watch something and make it a mainstream success is often less to do with how good the product is as how well it's marketed. So while I admit that I think speed and power is a big attractive factor in sport and the significant drop off in these areas between men's and women's sport is a big reason for making it less watchable for most people, that simply saying that if enough people went to games it would get more coverage isn't necessarily right either.

That's not true. It's been on Fox Sports news every day and in the paper every day. If people were more interested it would get more coverage regardless who was winning.

Just out of interest, I'm the editor of a South Australian regional newspaper called The Bunyip. In today's edition we have Ainslee Knight on our back page. She's a local girl selected to represent SA at women's cricket.

Alex - T20 and ODI's are about power, the fact is that the women don't have it anywhere what the men do. That way the argument goes that it is about finesse, technique etc The men have technique, finesse and elegance in their strokes as well. If people were truly interested in Women's Cricket they would be finding the information related to it, watching whenever they could on live streams and actually attending the games. If there is interest in a product people will make the effort and dedicate time to find it and watch/buy/participate. The fact that people don't watch or make to much fuss indicates that there is not very much if any interest in watching our Women's team play. Unfortunate but true. Will this always be the case? Who knows...

Possibly mentioned but there wouldn't have been any real coverage. Of course the match was in Perth so the time difference may have had an impact. Channel 10 mentioned the game a few times in their BBL telecasts and I've seen a bit of coverage in the papers. Besides, your point was that it received little coverage because we didn't win. My point was that it receives little coverage even when we do win. It may have received a tiny fraction more coverage but not a lot. I'd like it to receive more coverage but the fact is that there simply isn't sufficient interest in women's cricket to warrant any real coverage

Having managed the media for women's cricket, I can tell you how hard it is to get mainstream media coverage. In WA, the chief cricket writer once played a grade game against the skipper of the Western Fury, Nicole Bolton (who, incidentally, narrowly missed out on a Test debut at the WACA). Bolton scored 78no and what was the journo's response? He only referred to Bolton as 'the girl'. I think David's article is misguided by focussing on media coverage while highlighting the sport's pin-up girl as the one needing the coverage. How many know of Meg Lanning's record century off 45 balls in an ODI? Renee Farrell's hat trick in an Ashes match? Do you think their feats received much coverage? Holly Ferling is the next star who has played against men while still in high school. Women's cricket is definitely a tough one to promote, but it ultimately comes down to the simple fact that a team that wins is easier to promote. I would encourage everyone to have a serious look at the live stream of the one dayers and T20s, as women's cricket is not about power, but finesse and pointy-elbowed elegance. It's definitely one for the purists.

And she's also Mitchell Starc's better half!

I watched the sports segment of the Channel 7 6.00 pm news the day the women's test ended. No mention of the result. Do you think the result would have been mentioned if Australia had won? I know what I think...

Hard to get too get the mass market excited about watching cricket matches.at boys school age skill level.