May 9, 2024 | SPORTS | By Grace Brean
The NCAA March Madness Division I Women’s Basketball Championship made history as the most-viewed college basketball game on ESPN, surpassing 18.9 million viewers. Now, it only seems fitting to pass the mic to powerful women off the court in sports multimedia.
The March Madness paradigm shift is carving out space for women in sports journalism, a field that has long been dominated by men. Female journalists face numerous challenges and obstacles in their pursuit of a career in this field. However, the fight for gender equity in the newsroom is synchronous with the momentum in media coverage of women’s sports.
According to the 2021 Sports Media Racial and Gender Report Card, approximately 83.9 percent of jobs in sports media in the United States, including both major newspapers and media websites, are held by white men. Despite this disproportion, several women have shown extraordinary prowess in this gender-biased field. Two of which are Mina Kimes and Charlotte Wilder.
Sign of the Kimes: Empowering insight from Bloomberg magazine business writer to Sports Emmy nominee.
Mina Kimes, NFL Live analyst and senior writer at ESPN, made headway as the first female nominee for the 45th Annual Sports Emmy Awards on Tuesday, April 9, in the Outstanding Personality and Studio Analyst category for her work on ESPN, ESPN2 and ABC. Since graduating from Yale University with an English degree, Kimes is nothing short of a trailblazer for female reporting.
“There are very few women in [Sports Media], especially in football,” Kimes said in an interview with The Catalyst, “although we’re seeing more in radio and podcasting, which I think will help build a pipeline eventually for more women giving opinions about football.”
Kimes delved into her passion for the career, interning in book publishing. Prior to her senior year at Yale, she interned in business journalism, which landed her a position in business reporting for Fortune magazine.
Before joining the ESPN team, Kimes received awards from the New York Press Club, National Press Club and Asian American Journalists Association. In 2014, Kimes received the Larry Berger Young Business Journalist Prize from the Society of American Business Editors and Writers.
The NFL analyst currently sits in a big seat amongst all-male colleagues at the NFL analyst table.
“I would say the numbers are even more stark, for what I do, which is analysis and is sort of different from being a reporter and that, you know, my job is to go on TV and podcasts and kind of give my opinions about sports,” Kimes said. “Then as a reporter… those numbers feel pretty accurate but you definitely see more [female] reporters covering teams, national reporters and columnists covering sports, even if they remain a minority.”
In 2014, the Nebraska native joined the ESPN team as a writer and commentator, reporting on a wide range of sports, with a main focus on the NFL. Kimes wrote breakthrough investigative pieces regarding the league’s concussion crisis and domestic violence incidents involving players.
Kimes also covers baseball, soccer, e-sports, and is a frequent commentator on ESPN programs such as “Around the Horn,” “Highly Questionable,” along with hosting her own podcast, “The Mina Kimes Show featuring Lenny.”
Her extensive accolades continue, achieving the 2016 Front Page Award for Best Sports Story from the Newswomen’s Club of New York.
Wilder’s wit brings comedy into sports commentary, carving out space for aspiring female journalists.
When Charlotte Wilder entered an elevator headed to the press box of the 2017 MLB All-Star game, she quickly realized the irony of her situation. She was the only woman in the elevator, would likely be the only female reporter in the press box, and one of the only women in her field working that day.
“I liked the idea of entering a space that was predominantly male,” Wilder told The Catalyst. “Not only did I not start out in this world, but I wanted to prove myself in it.”
Wilder graduated from Colby College with an English degree and has worked for several sports media outlets including SportsBlog Nation, USA Today, Huffington Post and The Boston Globe. She also appeared on NPR and served as a senior writer at Sports Illustrated.
After two years at Fox Sports, Wilder was hired in 2023 by Meadowlark Media and DraftKings, bringing a wide range of talent and a creative sense of humor to these organizations.
Wilder first realized her deeply rooted passion for sports when she “told [her] third-grade class [she] was going to be the first girl to play in the MLB.”
Wilder has appeared as a commentator and analyst on sports programs such as “Good Morning Football” on the NFL Network and “SportsCenter” on ESPN. She has even hosted her own shows, including “The People’s Sports Podcast” and “ChangeUp” on DAZN.
Following her own success, entering and dominating in a traditionally male space, her aspirations don’t stop there. The social media host of “The Wilder Things” truly has her foot in the door of sports journalism and told The Catalyst that she is using her success to bring more women into the profession.
After hearing about two females dominating the sports journalism space, it seems that the first step to addressing the gender disparity within sports media is providing women a platform to empower fellow journalists in sports multimedia. Essentially, giving them a platform to share their various and unique experiences in a notoriously male-dominated occupation. Promoting female visibility and recognition of high achievement is intended to make the possibility more tangible for women to join the sports multimedia community.