MEDIA WATCH: TITLE IX DEBATE FEATURES PROBLEMATIC ENTRENCHED INTERESTS

By Al Mattei

Founder, TopOfTheCircle.com

TELESIDE, U.S.A. -- On the weekend of the 30th anniversary of Title IX, the law guaranteeing equal funding to institutions receiving federal funds, ESPN shifted programming focus in its "Women And Sports Weekend."

And therein lies the problem.

There are enough women's sports out there that a large entity like the ESPN Networks don't necessarily have to present "special" female-centered programming just one weekend a year.

The folly of this was shown when, at a sparsely-attended town hall meeting in Hartford, a prep-school student asked why there was not more coverage of women's sports on the news program SportsCenter.

Be that as it may, there was a lot of debate about the effects of Title IX, so much so that, over an open mike before heading to commercial, Bob Ley could be heard saying to a panelist, "We could do two hours on this."

And they probably should have. Some of the best television in the past 15 years has been "Viewpoint," an occasional series of live town meetings broadcast after ABC's Nightline. And need we remind you that ABC and ESPN are both owned by Disney?

The same could be said about the Sunday Outside The Lines show, where Trey Wingo expressed that more time could be spent on the issue of Title IX.

There were some "cringe" moments in some of the broadcasting. Friday Night Fights had an all-female boxing card where the announce team wound up critiquing the participants' strategies and techniques to a detail you wouldn't find at, say, the Tyson-Lewis fight.

However, there was a good montage of interviews on NHRA 2 Day with Shirley Muldowney, Angelle Savoie, and Rhonda Hartman-Smith.

And, to be sure, there were people watching the other collected sports on Women And Sports Weekend.

Let's hope that continues beyond this weekend -- this year -- for more programming rather than just segregating it off to one side for showcasing once a year.