Storm Over Kornheiser Tip of Sexism in Sports Media

Once you get past the colossal stupidity and/or arrogance of Tony Kornheiser's impromptu commentary on Hannah Storm's wardrobe, you're left with a blatant truth: rampant sexism is alive and well in sports media circles.

Few women in front of or behind the cameras need a posting on a web site to confirm what they live every day: that their ability to perform their duties and to be taken seriously at their craft is judged on factors that have nothing to do with their skill.

By the way, any talk that Kornheiser's two-week suspension for insulting Storm for the skirt and blouse she wore while anchoring SportsCenter one morning last week is somehow political correctness run amok is, to put it politely, absurd.

Kornheiser publicly demeaned a colleague and -- even with an apology -- if he weren't making a lot of money for ESPN, he'd have been fired from PTI.

Beyond his hubris, Kornheiser's other major crime was to give aid and comfort to that segment of sports consumers that assess value to a woman's performance based on how she looks, while granting credibility to men, regardless of their appearance.

Take TNT's Craig Sager, for instance. The NBA sideline reporter has turned wearing garish suits, shirts, ties and shoes into a trademark. Yet, no one would dare make a judgment on his competence strictly on his appearance. Indeed, in spite of his get-up and being ridiculed on-air because of it, Sager remains one of the best at what he does.

Hannah Storm, and every other female sportscaster, producer, director and technical support employee deserves that same opportunity: to be evaluated for what they do, not for how they look. Tony Kornheiser's thoughtlessness made that more difficult.

What She's Watching

It turns out that there might actually be some logic to NBC's strategy of tailoring Olympics broadcasts towards women, since they're the dominant viewership bloc, relative to gender.

According to Nielsen Wire, an estimated 56 percent of viewers during the first week of Olympics viewing were female. That's a near reversal of the viewership for the Super Bowl, where 54 percent of the audience was male, while 46 percent was female.

Older viewers, the survey found, are watching the Games in a greater proportion than the rest of the demographic groups. Ratings among viewers 55 and older are 82 percent higher than the national average, while the numbers of teenagers watching are 57 percent lower than the national average.

It's also a good thing that NBC's telecasts are all in high definition, since 55 percent of those watching the Games are viewing them in homes that have HD capabilities and their viewership is 14 percent higher than in non-HD capable homes. A little more than 40 percent of homes watching the Olympics have DVRs and those ratings are 12 percent higher than average, so maybe, just maybe, NBC could consider showing more things live in 2012.

One last thing: Ethnic minorities are watching in dramatically smaller proportions to the rest of the population. Ratings for Hispanic and African-American viewers are off 74 percent than the national average, while the numbers of Asian viewers are off 15 percent.

Separated at Birth?

It's said that everyone on the planet has a lookalike, a person who could pass as your double. But have you ever tuned into a sporting event and heard an announcer and thought you were hearing someone else?

During NBC's Olympic figure skating coverage, more than one person has noted how much analyst Scott Hamilton sounds like ESPN baseball reporter/analyst Tim Kurkjian.

Just a guess here, but Kurkjian probably can't tell a lutz from a salchow and Hamilton might have a hard time explaining the infield fly rule, but give them a script, don't show their faces and audiences might not be able to tell the difference.

Weekend Watch

To close Black History Month, ESPN's Sunday Outside the Lines (9 a.m. ET) has what should be a fascinating piece from Jeremy Schaap on the life and efforts of Lester Rodney, a white sportswriter, who lobbied personally and in print in the 1930s for the integration of Major League Baseball more than a decade before Jackie Robinson joined the Brooklyn Dodgers.