by Greg Schneider

Created on: April 02, 2008

Over 40% of men in America watch women's sports. 65% of all Americans think it is very important for companies to sponsor women and women's sports. Yet last year only 2 of 52 Sports Illustrated Covers were dedicated to women, and one was the swimsuit issue. Should women be treated as equals in the sporting world? I believe that, yes women should be treated as equals and given equal finical support, equal recognition for their athletic achievements and equal pay at the professional level.

I believe that even though women may be (less of my opinion and more of a fact taken from current 100 yard dash, mile times, and marathon times) less athletic than men, they should still be given equal finical support by high school and college institutions. Currently almost 70% of America thinks it is all right for high schools and colleges to cut back on male athletics in order to provide women with and equal opportunity. Women are making remarkable strides in sports and may soon in fact be ahead of men in certain areas. This development would never have occurred had Title IX not been passes and women not given equal finical support. While some might say, "why give women equal support when they don't generate as much revenue for their sport", I say give women equal coverage on air and in the paper and more people will watch/pay attention to it. In my previous example where only 2/52 covers were dedicated to women, think about if only 10 more covers where for women how many more men might become interested in women's sports and start watching them. Even now with the skewed coverage, 40% of males in American watch women's sport, that's a lot considering how hard it is to find women's sports on TV. I do not get cable and on any given night there are probably one or two games of football, baseball, NASCAR, golf, or tennis on. The only women's sports I have seen on TV are tennis and very rarely golf. Just think about how many more men would watch women's sports if they were more available to watch. These are all reasons why equal finical support by both high schools and colleges needs to continue. Eventually women's sports will be given equal airtime and then most likely equal viewing time, equal endorsements and equal popularity.

Women should receive equal airtime and recognition for their athletic achievements. I agree that right now women are not as fast, strong, good at sports as men, but according to one site, women will be running equal 100 meter dash times by as early as

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