Covering women’s sport? An analysis of Sports Illustrated covers from 1987-2009 and ESPN The Magazine covers from 1998-2009

This content analysis builds upon previous sport media scholarship (Lumpkin & Williams, 1991; Fink & Kensicki, 2002; Duncan & Messner, 2005; Messner & Cooky, 2010) to examine the covers of the two US sporting magazines with the highest circulation: Sports Illustrated (from 1987-2009) and ESPN the Magazine (1998-2009). Guided by previous feminist works, the authors critique the amount and types of coverage afforded men and women on the covers of these sporting periodicals and observe changes since 1987 the final year covered by Lumpkin and Williams’ (1991) longitudinal study which documented the persistent under-representation of women on the covers of Sports Illustrated. This current study found declining coverage as 8.75% of the periodicals’ covers from 1987-1994 contained women, only 6.38% of the covers from 1995-2003 and 4.88% of the covers from 2003-2009 featured women. Additionally, the majority of females were depicted in passive poses (63.7% of all females), while the majority of males were depicted in active roles (61.1% of all males, and 73.5% of Sports Illustrated covers). Furthermore, female sports figures were frequently sexualized and/or featured in ways which emphasized conventional feminine norms, thus serving to trivialize their athletic accomplishments.