I know, I know, football season is over (sadly), but a reader named Tom Hefferon has written in with a question:
If college and professional football are the unique and entire domain of male athletes, such that former players are most likely the most knowledgeable as to the game’s nuances both on and off the field, why is it that, while all the off-field commentary is also male-dominated, all the on-field interviewing and commentary is done by females who never touched a football, let alone played a down? It seems odd to me and I suspect an explanation would only be found in your good devices.
There are surely a few exceptions — Tony Siragusa comes to mind — but Tom has a point. I’d be interested to know what the networks that carry football know about the appeal of their sideline reporters, but in the absence of such knowledge, I’ll hazard a few guesses:
- One network put a female reporter on the sideline and (whether it was “effective” or not), the others followed.
- The networks wish to appear to not be sexist by having an all-male crew broadcast crew.
- Female reporters are meant to appeal to the heavily male audience — and/or engage the (growing) female minority?
- Sideline reporters aren’t meant to elicit strategy and in-depth information in interviews as much as the players’ and coaches’ emotions, personality, etc., and women are better (or the networks think women are better) at eliciting same.
Your thoughts?
and 
. You can also watch it on 
I have always assumed these women were meant to be eye candy…for lack of a more PC term.
luls!
And they’re all relatively attractive? Huh, I wonder why that is. The truth is that the vast majority of sideline reporters offer almost nothing to the broadcast and rather than doing away with the position it’s being slowly transitioned from ex-players to eye candy. There might be more current football sideline reporters with dance/cheer team experience than actual football experience.
All of this being said, I prefer Erin Andrews to Tony Siragusa, so I’m not complaining.
Generally speaking, all the “insight” the sideline reporter has is relayed to them from their producer who got it from the team’s media people.
CBS doesn’t even use sideline guys for their NFL coverage any more.
I’ve never hired one, but I’d guess that they are simply there to add some semblance of ‘balance’ to the gender equation.
While I consider most sideline reporter’s commentary rather useless, Erin Andrews offers some pretty good insight… better than Tony Siragusa in all aspects
They don’t really say much during the broadcast, are they reporting to the booth when not on the air?
Some are attractive, but there are plenty who aren’t (or, couldn’t really be classified as “eye candy”).
I assume that networks want their broadcasts teams to be diverse, and they (probably rightly) believe that making the sideline reporter female is the only way to achieve gender diversity.
A blonde’s way to payback for male ob/gynecologists?
Eye-candy plus diversity; anyone can read the questions and it’s the analysts who analyze the answers, no knowledge of the game is required.
But also:
The biggest thing the sideline reporters do in college games is ask the coaches questions at halftime; usually one coach as half-time begins and the other as 2nd half play is about to resume.
The coaches are required to do this, but I wonder whether someone at network feels they will have to be more civil about complying with this obligation, if not more forthcoming, with a woman.