.
ok sports industry, I have a bone to pick with you.

look, I understand women's sports will never be as universally popular as men's.
I get it.
I may not 100% agree with it, but I get it.

that being said, the disparity of attention given to the two is appalling.

March Madness. aside from NFL playoffs and the Olympics, it's my favorite time of year. I love the atmosphere, the games, the 'anything can happen' arena of the bracket.
and, coming from a state in which both the local university's basketball teams kicked ass, I am used to the women's games (and subsequent achievements) getting just as much attention as the men's.

but I am not in my home state at the moment. haven't been for a good long while now. and when abroad or, as recently, down south, I turn to numerous reputable and well-known national sports websites to catch up on the goings on in the sports world.
which in mid-march primarily focuses on tournament brackets.

and here's where it starts to get f***ing annoying.

the men's tournament: articles, discussion, up-to-the-minute and realtime updates, both live and pdf printable brackets. which is great. I love it. bring it on.

women's?
ne'er to be seen.

out of the four websites I frequent (I practically live on them during the NFL season), I was able to find information on the women's tournament on one.
one.
and that site doesn't even have a bracket available.
I had to google image it and eventually found one on the huffington post's website.
(did you know the huffington post had a sports section? I did not. learn something new everyday.)

now, these are pretty much the top four sports coverage entities in the country. they are respected. they have magazines and tv shows. they employ top writers, including many a former athlete.
so what the hell are they playing at?

the argument is there isn't enough interest to warrant the time and effort to provide the same amount of coverage as mens sports gets. the argument is not enough people care.

and the response is the majority will not bloody well care if the media keeps acting like women's sports are somehow inferior and don't matter as much.
as long as the leaders in sports coverage push women's sports to the side, hide them under dismissive labels, or don't acknowledge them at all, the general perception of their worth is not going to change.

and I argue that while women's sports may never command the same level of fan base, sponsorship, or media wealth, there are plenty of people who care.

and we are sick and f***ing tired of having to search the netherworlds of webpages for any indication that the sports we enjoy and support exist.

it's 2013.
sports is no longer the realm of the chauvinistic and the misogynistic.
so get with it.

.