Why Representation Matters In Sports

In the past couple of weeks, the NHL’s Seattle Kraken named the league’s first woman coach, a transgender and nonbinary athlete made the US Olympics track and field team, as did the first out gay man, a rookie Black woman became the first WNBA player to achieve 10 consecutive double doubles, and Team USA’s women’s gymnastics team is the picture of racial and ethnic diversity with one Black gymnast, one who is mixed race and identifies as Black, a Hmong American, a Dominican American, and one white woman.

In these times of heightened anti-DEI sentiment, you may wonder why these identities matter. After all, aren’t they proof of the success of the American Dream?

Actually, no. In fact, all of these accomplishments are notable because so many diverse people are still underrepresented in sports and still face barriers to success based on gender, race/ethnicity, sexuality, and social class.

While these firsts and achievements do represent some progress, the fact that they are exceptions demonstrates the need for greater support and inclusion for women, racial/ethnic and sexual/gender minorities in sports.

Participation In Sports Is Still Disproportionate

Granted, certain kinds of diversities have fared well in some ways in some places. There are a lot of Black players in the NFL, NBA, and WNBA, though not so many in the ranks of coaches. Few People of Color at all are to be found in individual sports (except some track and field events). Tennis, archery, downhill skiing, swimming, diving, dressage, ice skating—at the elite levels, these sports still remain the purview of white and well-to-do Americans.

Women’s basketball is having a moment, but the disparities between women’s and men’s basketball at both the NCAA and professional levels is glaring. Lesbian visibility is pretty good in women’s basketball and softball, but how many out women gymnasts can you name or out gay men in the NFL, NBA, NHL, or MLB? Simply mention trans athletes, especially trans women, and watch the viral hate on social media.

For girls, in particular, participation in sports is shaped early in school by family socioeconomic status, community socioeconomic status, and race. Lower income girls, especially girls of color, have fewer opportunities and are less likely to participate in sports than other girls and boys.

This summer will mark the first time in history that an equal number of women will participate in the summer Olympics. That only took 128 years.

Media Representation Is Still Disproportionate

While women’s sports have gained some media visibility in recent years, by far media pay much more attention to men’s sports. Coverage for some women’s sports may peak at certain times of the year, say, around the Olympics, but, on the whole, turn on the TV or pick up a newspaper, and you’ll most consistently find coverage of men’s sports.

Even when we can find women’s sports, we often experience announcers more interested in women’s appearance or relationships with men than their athleticism. Of course, this isn’t all that surprising, considering sports media is overwhelmingly white and male.

Media coverage of Angel Reese and Caitlin Clark also demonstrates the subtle and sometimes not-so-subtle racial biases of sports commentators and writers. Much has been made of flagrant fouls by Black women like Reese and Chennedy Carter on Clark, who is white, but sportscasters express much less outrage when Alyssa Thomas, who is also Black, slams Reese to the floor.

Costs Of Lack Of Representation

Lack of representation in sports has a variety of negative effects on diverse athletes. From the pay gap to the near-absence of People of Color in some sports, lack of representation in sports shapes how athletes see (or don’t see) themselves as competitors.

Lack of representation can lead to what communications experts called “symbolic annihilation,” a phenomenon that causes members of groups to see themselves as not being important or not belonging. Lack of representation also reinforces cultural biases of dominant groups.

Lack of representation also has material consequences. No woman made Forbes’ 2023 list of the top 50 highest paid professional athletes. Wages for athletes are often tied to broadcasting income, and women’s sports receive a much smaller portion of that pie because they are still only a small slice of sports airtime.

Fewer Black children are playing baseball. Part of that is because of the high costs associated with youth baseball. Part of it is also that Black youth do not see themselves represented in Major League Baseball, where only 8% of players are Black.

With trans women athletes, however, we see an opposite effect though over-representation of the handful of trans women, such as Lia Thomas, who win in women’s competitions. While very few trans women or trans girls actually compete in sports, media have focused on the minority who have woman at women’s events, contributing to a trans panic in sports that relies on a number of misconceptions and falsehood: trans women are men; any man is better at sports than all women; trans women have inherent biological advantages in all sports.

What media do not represent are the many trans women and girls who compete in women’s sports without winning, who are just average athletes like most other competitions. Our focus on elite athletes means we often overlook the vast majority of people who play sports for fun without Olympic dreams.

Media representation also often overlooks the complexities of trans athletes. Bodies, like sports, are complicated, and what holds true for one sport and one body might not hold true for another. Our representations should be more inclusive and complex so we see the full range of possibilities and problems for trans athletes. Otherwise, we simply perpetuate stereotypes that are harmful to all kinds of women and girls.

Positive Impacts Of Representation

On the flip side, representation has a number of positive impacts. Seeing people who look like themselves matters to potential athletes, and seeing diverse athletes also has positive impact on the broader culture.

Especially for youth, seeing people like themselves positively represented in media can enhance self-esteem, validation, and support. By seeing athletes who look like them, young people can imagine themselves doing similar activities and achieving new goals. They also can feel a sense of community and overcome feelings of being alone or “the only one.”

Recall how girls’ participation in soccer rose after they watched the success of the 1999 women’s World Cup team.

Representation also helps reduce stereotypes and bias by exposing people to others who are different from themselves. When people watch athletes who are different in some way, their stereotypes about groups are challenged. In fact, watching people who are different can even increase empathy and generate positive feelings about different groups.

That means watching Angel Reese, Nikki Hiltz, Jessica Campbell, and Nico Young—Black, female, nonbinary, gay—matters, not just for women, Black people, trans and nonbinary people, or queer folks. It matters for all of us because it helps us all become more inclusive in our thinking about others.

Representation Is Not Enough

Representation, however, while incredibly important, is only a beginning point for inclusion in sports. Representation can easily become tokenism. If diverse athletes are included as sole or only a handful of representatives of various groups, then real inclusion hasn’t happened.

Why does that matter? Inclusion isn’t just a feel-good goal for progressive people. Inclusion means better work and better products. Research shows that greater diversity in groups contributes to greater creativity, better performance, greater competitiveness, enhanced attractiveness to potential participants, and improved well-being.

In other words, greater diversity is good for sports, and representation contributes to greater diversity. Pretending colorblindness and acting like gender and sexuality don’t matter isn’t the solution to tensions over difference.

Rather, the powerbrokers of sports should actively transform structures—from recruiting practices to hiring to media to wages—to increase participation by and representation of diverse athletes. As individual—whether fans or competitors—we should embrace and celebrate athletes’ social differences. If we as a society that values sports make structural and individual changes to enhance diversity in sports, we all win, all the way around.