A few days ago, Andy Benoit, a writer for Sports Illustrated, tweeted that women’s sports, including the Women’s World Cup, are not worth watching. Given that on Sports Illustrated’s home webpage there is not one story about any woman, let alone the Women’s World Cup -- unless she’s in a bikini -- I doubt he’ll be punished at all, despite the terrible image he just gave the company.
Seth Meyers and Amy Poehler reunited for a segment of “Really!?!” on Wednesday night to mock and criticize Benoit for making such an idiotic comment. Poehler says mockingly says to Benoit through the camera, “I think a lot of people would like to watch you tell that to Serena Williams,” earning her a lot of cheers from the crowd. The duo went on to point out the flaws of the media beyond Benoit’s tweet, criticizing media outlets for only showing the Women’s World Cup on secondary sports channels like Fox Sports 1 when the NFL dedicates an entire day to a draft. If the public didn’t know who Beloit was last week, unfortunately for him, now they do.
His comment is an ignorant insult to both professional and young and aspiring female athletes everywhere. A UMD junior who wishes to remain unnamed has played soccer for the majority of her life and was quite irate over the tweet.
She said, “As a woman who’s played on top-level teams, I know how exciting games can be. I’ve been to my fair share of men’s games for almost every sport and have witnessed women playing better than men.” This assumption that men’s sports are more exciting or more intense than women’s sports needs to end. I too played soccer for the majority of my life and absolutely loved it. I wasn’t the best player out there by any means, but I put immeasurable effort and intensity into becoming a better player than I was the day before, which is something every soccer player, male and female, can attest to. I know how much it stings to hear that men are better at soccer than women (which isn’t true) and now, that women’s sports “aren’t worth watching” because an insignificant Sports Illustrated writer deems them so.
Being a female athlete is not easy today and never has been. Women have had a lot of catching up to do in the world of sports, not talent-wise, but structurally. The first men’s World Cup took place in 1930 and the first Women’s World Cup took place 61 years later in 1991. Despite this incredible setback, during the 1999 Women’s World Cup, over 40 million people attended and watched the final match live, making it the most impressive event in women’s sports.
These pioneering women brought the sport of women’s soccer to a place it had never been before. Young girls looked up to Mia Hamm and the rest of the American team. They realized they could actually be professional athletes, an unfeasible dream for young female soccer players before the summer of 1999. When Brandi Chastain scored the winning penalty kick in the championship game against China, she immediately pulled her shirt off and dropped to the ground, as if to say, “We made it.” This iconic image of Chastain has since become a motivator for young soccer players everywhere who aspire to one day be the next Mia Hamm.
The 1999 USA team set the standard for teams to come and had the most-watched soccer match in history—and that’s not worth watching, Mr. Benoit? Even President Bill Clinton attended the match and called it “the most exciting sports event” he’d ever seen, and I’d think twice before crossing him.
