The Rotten Fruits of Equity

What remedies are being deployed to address past grievances?

I had ESPN’s First Take playing in the background at my office. (That’s probably it’s own issue worth discussing, but not for now.) I overheard commentary from the female guest that was on which caught my mind enough I focused in on it. I watched a bit more of the show (until Stephen A. Smith’s performative buffoonery made me remember why I don’t watch that show) and was really impressed by her analysis. So much so, it led to a waterfall of thoughts that I felt fit perfectly center into our cultural malaise and I wanted to share them here. I need to start writing more long-form and less X threads… but old habits die hard.

It’s really enlightening to rewind back in your mind some of the social movements and changes we have been through in the last half century now with the benefit of new understanding (revealing). A new eye. The one my mind trailed down here was the almost comical foray of injecting women into sports broadcasting. As I’ve written about many times, sports has been a primary fabric of my life. I played almost all of them, but none well enough to go collegiate and beyond. I play pickup bball to this day and hope to soon get back to competitive tennis. But what I’m pointing at here is my passion and I’d even say devotion to professional sports. My goodness, I simply don’t understand what life is without the energy of pro sports interwoven through it. My earliest memories are often sports-based. I vividly remember the living room I was standing in when Keith Smart rained in that floater for IU in 1987. I would have been 7 at the time. I think back and realize that of course that moment forever imprinted into my memory. That was my father’s top of the sports mountain just like it is for my daughter now with my Canes. You better believe if (when) my boys win another natty, it’ll be such a special moment in our household it will be be cast into my two kids’ brains just as bright. And one day they’ll talk about how crazy dad went, just like mine in that living room decades ago.

Sports was one of the primary arenas that underwent a massive Smash The Patriarchy assault. Of course it did, because sports was very male dominant. Of course it is, because men are the more physical of our species. If you watch an NBA game next to a WNBA game they barely resemble the same game. The rules for tennis are dramatically different between the sexes because the power of the men’s game so fundamentally impacts it. There are sports where it cuts the other way. I find female gymnasts to be much more enjoyable to watch. I actually enjoy their competition more than the men’s. You can make a great argument that women’s tennis is a much more enjoyable experience for the fan as well. It’s more pure to the game’s fundamentals. This isn’t a discussion of equalizing because men and women will never be the same. We were quite specifically designed to NOT be the same. We are the human yin-yang. And when it comes to making babies (nurturing life), us men cannot excel at the level our ladies do. To be frank, we don’t want to. Our instinct is to protect you while you care for the young. On the other side of our magnificently-balanced coin, physical competitions from basketball to the barbaric are arenas dominated by men. This just is. This is nature; reality. But see, Equity zealots despise both.

Back to broadcasting…

I remember the Equity push in this industry very well. It began as a few very competent women showing up in TV booths. Below are some pioneers, but I can think of a bunch more throughout the 80s and 90s. Not just women as part of analyst shows, but those who began calling games. And sure, I remember pushback and sneering against this. It’s similar to men wanting to keep Augusta only for men. Perhaps they should have been allowed to; it’s another Equity discussion we desperately need to have and that was taken from us through Hatecraft. But an entire industry like this is a different animal than a golf club.

I didn’t see any issue at all with women calling games… as long as they were women who loved and knew the game. And in the beginning, they were! I’d argue this period actually ran for quite a while. A more modern example would be Erin Andrews. While she never called games, she was respected way more than your typical “sideline reporter”. And that’s because she wasn’t like most “sideline reporters”. Erin loves college football and knows it better than most guys who love college football. She was great to listen to on sports shows and castings because what she offered to the discourse was solid and interesting. The fact she was pretty to the eyes only served as gravy. But that wasn’t the case for most “sideline reporters”. They of fancy fuzzy boots and ear muffs doing 90-second no-one-cares bits about uniform changes and personal Hallmark stories. It was ridiculous! And the vast majority of these spots were actresses, not sports diehards. Many stations even used models. I’m not putting that on women as I get that men ran those networks. I’m discussing what exactly we were doing by injecting this into football coverage. We all clap like seals that more women are counted amongst the ranks, but what are THOSE women there for? I’d feel the same about some dude showing himself off who really didn’t care too much about the sport behind him. I mean, to illustrate this profoundly, one of the first women in a sports TV booth in the 70s was a former Miss America. Again, I get that such a casting IS what the notion “The Patriarchy” is all about. Women weren’t allowed at all unless it was the hot one in the bikini. I get it. But what was done to solve this issue?

What is the ultimate objective of forcing numerical compliance with identity-based Equity demands? I take an industry of 100 males and force X% to be female. I dispose of the fact the % I am forcing in here is unnatural to the system. It isn’t 30 Erin Andrews’s. It’s maybe 3 or 4 and then 20 people who are only there because of the acting role it’s filling. Well, really, for the Equity quota it’s meeting. And I will join men in sneering at that and telling that Equity energy to GTFO! I wrote a comprehensive thread on X detailing exactly why this is, boiled down into the mechanics of Title IX and “disparate impact” law. We don’t want women forced into environments where they don’t belong. I don’t want men forced into environments where they don’t belong either. Bring a competent person into the slot who happens to be a woman and I’m stoked. Let’s go! Now you have me on your side and I’ll hockey-check the morons saying she isn’t allowed to be there.

Mina Kimes was clearly right where she belonged. She is awesome! Spit much better Cowboys analysis than I could have and I follow the NFL almost as obsessively as I do the college side. Because Mina Kimes isn’t on that stage because of her female demographic. She’s on that stage because of her passion for the sport and skills within the industry. In a perfect world, she got there because of meritocracy. And now I’ve crashed down on the crux of our Culture War, haven’t I? What remedies are being deployed to address these never-ending (by design) past grievances?

Give some serious thought to the WNBA and what it’s all about. How did it come to be? How is it surviving (see: how has it ever survived financially)? Why is there a college feeder system? Why does all of our media promote a league that literally cannot stand on its own feet outside of the academic and dogmatic commands of Equity (reality)? What (or whom) is that initiative ultimately serving? If you can distinguish between the WNBA and Mina Kimes, you’ve solved the puzzle of Equity capture and corrosion. Think of where this same ideological pursuit has now been driven legally. Is it women being served by this, or do we have a snake eating its tail?