OBS chief Yiannis Exarchos tells Broadcast Sport about what he believes needs to be done to promote women’s sport
Fresh off a summer Olympic Games that saw a 50/50 gender split in participants for the first time, Olympic Broadcasting Services CEO Yiannis Exarchos believes that broadcasters need to take more risks with regards to showing women’s sport.
Speaking ahead of International Women’s Day, which took place on 8 March, he told Broadcast Sport, “I think [broadcasters] if they take on a little more risk, and approach women’s competitions with the same care and attention as a big men’s competition [then more viewers will tune in].”
Exarchos added that he thinks the industry isn’t changing its views on women’s sport as quickly as wider society is, “The pretext that’s being used is that people don’t care as much. I have a strong belief that this opinion is behind today’s reality. There is clearly a phenomenon [of growing interest in women’s sport], first of all with women’s football, and women’s basketball in the United States this year.
“I think this balancing effect is happening in society faster than the industry realises. So I’m not even saying that we need to make an effort because this is the appropriate thing to do, I believe that we are lagging behind what actual society is looking for.”
He continued, “I believe there that the industry needs to start taking a little bit more risk and developing events. Of course, the events do require development. The money invested is not sufficient. They need to bring the competition to a high level. But you already have very interesting stuff. You have huge stadia filled for women’s competitions, so the audience started getting there. I think that they don’t get enough from the media.
“In the Olympics, we had the most followed event in the history of media with Paris. 50% of the competition was women’s events. It was not 20%. 52% of the audience were women. I understand that there are other components in the Olympic narrative, but I believe that there are other narratives in all sport competitions. It’s not the same as 20 or 30 years ago. So this excuse, [that people don’t care as much] is no longer very convincing.”
This is why broadcasters and organisers need to take on more risk, claims Exarchos, “If you present something as a secondary type of competition and you have the most important women athletes from their fields participating there, and the promotion of the event has not been good so half the stands are empty, and the dressing of the venue, the protocol, the sports presentation, all these things are not at the standard that they should be, then it will not work. But the problem will not be that it doesn’t work because of women’s sport, it’s going to be because there’s not been appropriate attention given to the event.”
He points to the work done at the last Olympics, and the upcoming Milan-Cortina Winter Games, where women’s and men’s matches are given the same production and organisation. “This [difference in production standards between events] is even bigger in women’s sports because there the standard coverage is so much lower. Even in one of the big Champions League matches between women’s teams, the coverage is not really at the level that it is for men’s teams. For us at to the Olympics, the final of women’s basketball was the same as it was for the men’s final. I think that subconsciously, for most viewers, elevates women’s sport to a much higher level.”
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