Sidelines Shouldn’t Be Scary: Safety Of Women Working In The Sports Industry

Choosing a career in sports journalism has been both exciting and terrifying. As much as I love learning about different sports, the importance of sports, athlete's stories, and sharing to others about issues within sports. One certain issue causes a lot of worry for me, but not for the same reason. Jenn Sterger, Lisa Olson, and Erin Andrews are a few of many women who weren’t protected in the sports industry. Causing public scrutiny, injustice, and an end to their careers. If the sports industry doesn’t change, and start to prioritize keeping the women that work for them safe; will I also have a similar story?

The first case I looked into was Jenn Sterger and Brett Favre. In the new Netflix documentary, Untold: The Fall of Favre, it follows the story of Sterger a former sports reporter and model who worked for sports Illustrated and the New York Jets, and Favre retired NFL quarterback who played 20 seasons primarily with the Green Bay Packers, and often being accredited as the greatest quarterback in all of the leagues history. In 2008 Brett Favre was playing for the New York Jets at the same time Sterger was a reporter for them. Sterger stated that she had never even met Favre during his time on the team, but that he got her phone number from a teammate, and proceeded to send her voicemails and explicit unsolicited pictures.

Sterger tried to speak out for herself and try to get Favre to stop, but when the NFL looked into the cases they only asked Favre if the allegations were true. Which he denied. When Sterger spoke to the commissioner of the NFL Roger Goodell he was dismissive of her, and when Sterger asked if the NFL would do anything to help, the NFL looked no further. leaving Sterger to deal with public scrutiny and explosive tabloids, which eventually ended her career as a sports reporter for the New York Jets.

This is the problem with the sport Industry, Sterger had never even met Favre but because of his inappropriate misconduct he ruined her career. “Sterger’s name was unwittingly plastered across every TV news and sports show around the country…She lost job opportunities and received blame for tearing down a hero” (Time.com). In the documentary Jenn Sterger states, “My life was ruined. And he went to the Hall of Fame.” Jenn Sterger had a promising career in front of her, and that was all taken away from one incident that she had no control over.

In order for a situation like Jenn’s to never happen again, the sports industry needs to have a stronger and more present human resources. I believe that with a more involved HR within the sports industry that actually holds athletes accountable for their actions, a case like Sterger’s won’t ever happen again.

Another incident that I looked into was the incident that occured to Lisa Olson in the Patriots locker room resulting in three players getting fined, but also portraying a bad look for Olson and her career. On September 17th, 1990 Olson was newly working for the Boston Herald as a reporter, it had been scheduled to interview the New England patriots Cornerback (Maurice Hurst) in the locker room that day because of the teams busy schedule. While conducting the interview she positioned herself away from the shower entrance but she could feel and hear taunting from other players behind her. Then the Patriots tight end Zeke Mowatt walked naked in front of her exposing himself and making sexual remarks to her. Olson tried to ignore what was going on but then other players joined in resulting in Olson leaving the locker room without finishing her interview.

Olson's first actions were to go to the Patriot’s bosses so they could inform the players that behavior like that was unacceptable. She is a journalist just trying to do her job, and she has every right to be in the locker room as a male journalist has. Due to the law made in 1988 saying: “US Federal Court had established the right of female journalists to work in locker rooms” (thetimes.com). In an article by The New York Times it states: Olson wanted to keep this incident out of the public eye stating: “...It was not my choice to have this matter decided in a public forum and it is unfortunate that Patriot management forced this to happen by not dealing with the guilty persons swiftly and decisively. My hope now is to be able to do my job: to serve the Boston Herald and its readers” (nytimes.com).

But after the situation went public Olson’s hope of continuing working for the Boston Herald was ended. Even though when the case was settled in 1992 and Olson received $72,500 from both the Patriots team and three specific players, her career was over. Even though she did nothing wrong she was portrayed as a problem in the press and received serious criticism and harm from the public. Her apartment was broken into, her tires were repeatedly slashed, death threats were sent to her, and explicit words speaking on her character were spray painted on her property. But worst of all, the Boston Herald thought it would be best to take Olson off of covering football for the Patriots, basketball for the Celtics, and ice hockey for the Bruins because of the abuse she was receiving from fans. After all of this Olson decided to move to Australia to try and get a fresh start and continue her career.

So even though Olson, very similar to Sterger, had no control over her own career and how it ended. Even though Olson tried to stay quiet about the abuse she faced, her career was still ended by the sports industry and the industries built in misogyny towards women working for them. A way for an incident like this to never happen again is to have a more neutral place for interviews. It would be easier if all reporters, not just female reporters were not allowed into the locker rooms for reports. Male and female reporters should have the same benefits and if female reporters aren’t given respect in the locker rooms then male reporters shouldn’t be given the advantage to conduct interviews in locker rooms solely based on their gender.

The third reporter's story I looked into was Erin Andrews and the incident that occured in her hotel room while she was covering a Vanderbuilt football game. In September of 2008 after Andrews hand covered the football game she went back to her hotel room that she was staying at for the night. While in the hotel room she was unknowingly recorded naked through a peephole by Micheal David, who then posted the videos of Andrews on the internet. Andrews sued David and the hotel she was staying at, settling for $55 million dollars 8 years later in 2016. So even though Andrews finally got justice for what happened to her, this also will never go away. After the settlement Andrews stated that: “This happens everyday of my life…either I get a tweet or somebody makes a comment in the paper or somebody sends me the video, or somebody screams it at me in the stands” (Sportsnewsing.com). This incident has definitely caused Andrews to be seen in a different light, and not be taken as seriously as a reporter because her privacy was invaded and she was shown to the world in an unfair and unflattering way.

Even though this case is not directly linked to ESPN which is who Andrews was working for at the time. If she were a male reporter staying at that hotel after covering a game, she would not have been recorded and her career would not have been put into jeopardy. So a way for something like this to not happen again is to provide female reporters with extra security while working, and when staying in public spaces like hotels after they have been working. It is unfair that female reporters are put into unsafe situations just because they are not male reporters. So if they had extra security while doing their job, they wouldn’t have to worry about something like Andrews went through happening to them.

In conclusion, I think that if female reporters in the sports industry were provided a more involved human resources department, safer and equal environments to conduct interviews, and more security while working. Cases like Jenn Sterger, Lisa Olson, and Erin Andrews will never happen again. And that new upcoming female reporters like myself will have full control over their career and not have to worry about it being taken in from them like the three women discussed. The sports industry has to change to allow for an increase in diverse growth, and new ideas and opinions to be shown.