In the 2 years – give and take a few weeks – since women made their maiden appearance as an Olympic sport at the 2012 Games it seems like they are still virtually unrepresented. Of course I didn’t expect that once the first female boxing Gold Medalist at the Olympic was crowned that both sides of the professional sport would suddenly become 50-50, but to have women’s’ boxing completely non-existent on British television since then is remarkable in its absurdity.
This was the home of the 2012 Olympics and yet this nation still has women’s’ boxing on the sidelines. This is unjust and such a terrible predicament in the 21st Century at a time when most people can live without fear that they will be killed due to some bigot in their neighborhood. Even other female codes of sport which are chronically undervalued (Rugby and Association Football to name just a few) show more of their professional females then boxing could only dream of at the moment in Britain.
While a television company is only there to make money and there’s nothing better than money in business, women’s boxing seems to have be treated as if doesn’t exist. Why is that so? Viewing figures must have been massive for the Olympics as people watch the pinnacle of sport in the billions. When Nicola Adams made history by becoming the maiden female to win a boxing Gold medal at the Olympics surely the astronomical amount of viewers didn’t all turn the channel to something else?
As we are a time in history when the amount of channels a person can have in their television guide can enter the 1000’s, with seemingly most tastes catered to, there is one taste that goes unsatisfied. That’s not reality shows, corny entertainment shows that seem to be trapped in the 1950s, or even gaming channels. It is women’s’ boxing. A sport that is only different from their male equivalent by their gender. At the moment the public is more likely to see a pair of kangaroos wearing boxing gloves on television than we are to see two women box.
Predicting what will happen in the future is as efficient as a bath without a bottom but twice as enjoyable in my opinion. But here’s one that I am fairly confident about: When this decade of boxing is written about in the coming years/decades the authors will mention about how much women’s’ boxing has improved by way of exposure, but the devoid of women’s’ boxing on UK television from 2012-2014 won’t be mentioned. When will women’s’ boxing be televised as much as their male equivalents?
