THE thing with women’s sport is nobody wants to watch it, do they?
Except for when they sold 55,000 tickets at Wembley for an England v Germany football friendly.
And when they packed out Lord’s cricket ground for a World Cup final that England won in a thrilling comeback last summer.
Oh, and when nine million tuned in to watch Great Britain’s hockey team defeat Holland and win gold in the greatest highlight of the Rio Olympics.
During an Olympics — including these current Winter Games in PyeongChang — women enjoy equal billing to men for the only time in the sporting cycle.
And from a British perspective, these Winter Games have even seen women dominate the media coverage.
Lizzy Yarnold and Elise Christie are two polar opposites who have enthralled the nation.
And speed-skater Christie sweeping the board between Games — but imploding in a series of recurring nightmares every time she competes in this global glare.
Then there is Eve Muirhead and her curlers, always the slow-burning, nation-gripper of these great slipping-and-sliding festivals.
There’s Izzy Atkin and the other, frankly lunatic, ski and snowboard freestylers.
Then bobsleighers Mica McNeill and Mica Moore, who raised £40,000 through crowd-funding to compete after their funding was slashed by a dysfunctional and allegedly ‘sexist’ governing body.
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When they earn medals, nobody says: “Yeah, but it’s only a WOMEN’S gold”. Olympic gold is an Olympic gold.
Yet we’ll leave PyeongChang next week and, with the partial exception of tennis Grand Slams, you’ll hear precious little of women’s sport for another couple of years.
One argument is nobody wants to watch women’s football, cricket or rugby on a weekly basis because there’s no tradition of it.
Although if we’d always stuck with tradition, we’d still have open sewerage and public executions.
So a chicken-and-egg debate develops over a lack of audience and a lack of coverage. This can only change when the male sporting establishment decides there is long-term gain in seriously promoting and growing women’s sports.
Of course, it would be wishful thinking to expect them to think: “Hang on, I’ve got a daughter/wife/sister/mother, why would I want to block off such a potentially enjoyable career path for them?”
More realistically, it might just strike them they could make more money through broadcasting rights and commercial deals if they stopped cutting adrift 51 per cent of the world’s population.
Women spend money, guys. Hey, it’s even in the old-school ‘jokes’ you make about them running amok with your credit card.
Football continues to be the worst culprit in this collective blindness. Manchester United, England’s biggest club, still don’t have a women’s team.
The FA, who’ve learned precisely nothing from their Mark Sampson debacle, has imposed Phil Neville on the England’s women’s team.
This despite him having no experience and precious little knowledge of the female game.
Having literally banned women’s football for 50 years until 1970, the FA is not exactly hurrying to advance the female cause.
It is also argued that the standard of women’s sports make them a less enjoyable spectacle.
But watch and it’s often apparent that these are DIFFERENT rather than inferior versions of the men’s games.
And while England won the last cricket World Cup, were runners-up in rugby and semi-finalists in football, blokes freeze at every such event.
Even if you want to convince yourself women’s sports are all sub-standard, then increased funding for professionalism swiftly improves the quality of a sport in leaps and bounds.
Boosting the standing of women’s sport will require foresight and short-term sacrifice for long-term gain.
It also requires those few women who have gained a high profile to do what the male establishment often accuse women of doing. They need to nag.
But as Yarnold said this weekend: “There’s been a change in the last few years with cricket, rugby and the football team selling out Wembley, which was unheard of.
“Jess Ennis-Hill has been tweeting support. British women have each other’s backs.
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“We need multiple role models to tell young girls that they can be football players.”
The tide of history suggests those who argue for any sort of greater equality are always proved right in the long run.
Whether in 20 years or 50 years from now, these arguments will sound ridiculous and women’s sport will have something close to the equal standing it has in the Olympics.
And, do you know what? It really is nothing to be frightened of.
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