[Hobart, Australia; December 6. Image via Getty]

HOBART, AUSTRALIA - DECEMBER 06: Nicola Earls of Western Australia competes in the Girls Under 17 Discus Throw during day three of the Australian All Schools Championships at the Domain Athletics Centre on December 6, 2009 in Hobart, Australia. (Photo by Mark Dadswell/Getty Images

Here's ESPN's in-depth reporting — it's longish, but worth it. This young lady has clearly been discriminated against, but it's good to see her family rallying around her, and the media covering this story so thoroughly and with such urgency. And good news: the US Dept. of Education is investigating the school for Title IX violations:

Pregnant High School Athlete Faces Discrimination [Feministing]

As evidence that the WNBA is still struggling, Levin cites the demise of the Houston Comets, and the fact that the Phoenix Mercury had to give away free tickets in order to fill the stadium for its championship series. The league is also a target of insults. Levin writes,

As the finals wound down, ESPN.com's most-popular writer, Bill Simmons, mocked his own network's coverage of women's hoops. "Tweets you won't see tonight," Simmons wrote. "Flip over to ESPN2, the 4th quarter of the climactic WNBA Finals game is on right now!" A few months earlier, Simmons encouraged one of his readers to go to a WNBA game wearing a T-shirt reading "EXPECT LAYUPS." And last month, the desperate-to-be-edgy Foxsports.com video series "Cubed" played host to a debate about which activity was more palatable, women's hoops or gay porn. (Fox Sports later cut that bit, explaining in a statement that it had been "experimental.")

Leaving aside the question of what's more "palatable," sexism or homophobia, it remains uncertain whether the WNBA will ever be able to pay for itself. As of 2007, Levin says, the league was losing between 1.5 and 2 million dollars a year. Explaining why, he writes,

The fundamental problem is that the sports world's primary spenders-adult men-have never shown much interest in watching women play basketball. For all the people like John Wooden who enthuse over the superior fundamentals of the women's game, there are thousands more who focus on what women can't do on the court. Dunking is not all there is to basketball-as your high school coach used to say, a slam is worth just as many points as a layup. But it's also true that nobody pays $1,000 for courtside seats to watch a layup line.

Of course, the lack of slam dunks may not be the only problem — there are probably many men who simply don't want to watch women play basketball. Fox's "gay porn" comparison may be revealing. The WNBA is popular with the gay and lesbian communities (as Levin mentions later), and some men who consider themselves red-blooded American sports fans may be uncomfortable with this association. Other RBASFs may not want to watch women play a sport they think of as masculine (as opposed to, say, gymnastics). Slurs about the "manliness" of female athletes were around long before Caster Semenya, and some viewers may think of WNBA players as like men, but worse. While some fans probably disdain the WNBA on gameplay alone, it's important to note that there may be other issues at work here.

Levin says the solution for the WNBA isn't to resolve these issues, but to concentrate on its base:

The audience for the WNBA is, by various accounts, between 60 percent and 80 percent female. The league also has a major following in the gay and lesbian community, a community that some franchises court and others aggressively alienate. If the WNBA focuses primarily on these fans, they can still have a large enough customer base to survive and succeed.

According to Levin, the WNBA will never score big TV or merchandising deals like its male counterpart does, and must instead maximize ticket sales by appealing to existing fans and possibly moving "toward smaller markets that are more likely to come out and support a professional women's basketball team." He cites as a model Women's Pro Soccer, a "grassroots-focused league that appears committed to sensible growth" and whose "core audience is 8-to-18-year-old girls who play soccer, their families, and 'fitness-minded women in their 20s, 30s, and 40s.'" The idea of the WNBA succeeding on female support alone, simply ignoring male RBASFs, has a certain sisters-are-doing-it-for-themselves appeal. And Levin's statement that "you're more likely to succeed by marketing your product to people who already like it than by trying to win over people who don't" makes good business sense. Still, it's sad that in a country where so many women watch men play sports, we have to accept that men will never watch women.

How To Fix The WNBA [Slate]

Today The Wall Street Journal reports that many institutions are reconsidering the point of cheerleading since it's original goal of cheering the football team to victory in the late 1800s has evolved into performing difficult stunts in recent decades. Many are concerned by recent reports on the dangerous of cheerleading:

Cheerleading accounts for 65% of all female catastrophic injuries in high school and college, according to the University of North Carolina's National Center for Catastrophic Sport Injury Research. The Consumer Product Safety Commission says the number of injuries from cheerleading accidents has more than quadrupled in 25 years. Another report put the number of cheerleader emergency room visits in 2007 at 26,786.

It's hard to put these numbers into perspective, since it's unclear how many cheerleaders there are. There are an estimated 400,000 public high school cheerleaders, but there are an unknown number of private teams, and the National Collegiate Athletic Association doesn't track the number of college participants since it's not considered a sport. According to The Wall Street Journal, the consensus estimate is that there are about 4 million cheerleaders in America, which puts the sport's injury rate on par with women's soccer. Cheerleading may only seem more dangerous than other sports because they practice year round and cheerleaders may be taken to the E.R. more than in sports with designated medical staffs.

The American Association of Cheerleading Coaches & Administrators issues safety guidelines for high school and college cheerleaders, and has banned several particularly dangerous stunts in recent years. For the 2008-2009 school year the association banned certain twists on basketball courts without a mat, Reuters reports. And in 2006 more restrictions were put on stunts involving pyramids after a Southern Illinois University cheerleader fell from a 15-person pyramid, cracking her vertebra and getting a concussion, according to USA Today.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that cheerleading is a contact sport in January (preventing injured cheerleaders from suing their schools and teammates), but part of the problem may be that too many people don't consider it a sport at all. Jeff Webb, chief executive Varsity Brands, which makes cheerleading uniforms and runs camps, says that compared to cheerleaders who performs stunts, those seen at NFL games are "a joke." But many seem to prefer the old-fashioned kind of cheerleader, like officials at the University Connecticut, which replaced the school's cheerleading team with a less-athletic "Spirit Squad" last month. John Saddlemire, the university's vice president for student affairs explained, "The emphasis on stunting had detracted from the major purpose," which he says should be on "fan interaction and truly on cheering and cheerleading."

Cheerleading has split into two very different forms over the years and continuing to put them in the same category may be detrimental to both activities. While many were offended by the University of Connecticut's decision to replace the cheerleading team with the Spirit Squad, there's nothing inherently wrong with having a group of (modestly-clothed) students cultivate school spirit. Opinions on stunt-based cheerleading have been polarized by the traditional image of girls in skimpy outfits cheering on all-male teams. While some men lament the loss of sexy women to oogle on the sidelines, many feminists belittle the sport because of its sexist roots.

As many young women (and some men) push themselves to perform increasingly difficult gymnastic moves in pursuit of cheerleading trophies and college scholarships, a culture has developed in which they're encouraged to tolerate injuries. Since many schools don't define cheerleading as a sport, teams don't have to comply with any safety guidelines and may not have the funding to hire well-trained coaches.

Some schools attempts to count cheerleading as a Title IX activity have been controversial. Quinnipiac University's decision to eliminate three sports teams, including women's volleyball, and move its (less expensive) cheerleading team up to varsity in the spring led to a federal lawsuit, the Associated Press reports. In her testimony Quinnipiac's volleyball coach said her grandmother could have been a cheerleader and, "To me, Title IX is about giving women opportunities beyond that." Obviously the intent of Title IX wasn't to eliminate existing sports opportunities for women, and many schools do just see cheerleading teams as a cheaper way to comply with the law. However, competitive cheerleading isn't the same activity practiced decades ago. As the struggle to reconcile the "sexy cheerleader" image with the skilled, physically demanding version of the sport practiced by many women today, injury rates among cheerleaders will remain high, as there isn't enough regulation or funding for better training and medical attention when they need it.

What's The Point Of Cheerleading? [The Wall Street Journal]
The American Association of Cheerleading Coaches & Administrators Announce New Safety Rules [Reuters]
New Rules Ban Dangerous Cheerleading Stunts [USA Today]
At Some Colleges, Cheerleading Counts As A Sport [Associated Press]

Earlier: UConn Replaces Cheerleaders With Less Athletic "Spirit Squad"

[Queens, September 13. Image via Getty]

Kim Clijsters from Belgium and her daughter Jada with her trophy after defeating Caroline Wozniacki from Denmark to win the Women's Final US Open match at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center September 13, 2009 in New York. AFP PHOTO / TIMOTHY A. CLARY (Photo credit should read TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP/Getty Images)

[Tampere, Finland; September 3. Image via Getty]

Netherlands' Anouk Hoogendijk celebrates her penalty kick goal during the UEFA women's Euro 2009 quarter-final football match between Netherlands and France in Tampere, Finland, on September 3, 2009. AFP PHOTO LEHTIKUVA / Antti Aimo-Koivisto *** FINLAND OUT *** (Photo credit should read ANTTI AIMO-KOIVISTO/AFP/Getty Images)

[Poznan, Poland; August 25. Image via Getty]

POZNAN, POLAND - AUGUST 25: Bahareh Alimoradi Nasrabadi of Iran competes in the Women's Single Sculls on day three of the World Rowing Championships on August 25, 2009 in Poznan, Poland. (Photo by John Gichigi/Getty Images)

[Berlin, August 20. Image via Getty]

BERLIN - AUGUST 20: Blanka Vlasic of Croatia reacts after a jump in the women's High Jump Final during day six of the 12th IAAF World Athletics Championships at the Olympic Stadium on August 20, 2009 in Berlin, Germany. (Photo by Stu Forster/Getty Images)

A combination of wrestling/grappling; boxing; kickboxing/Muay Thai; and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Some may call it "cagefighting"; some may call it brutal, but MMA is a sport, with training, rules and referees. And for women, traditionally the "delicate" and "weaker" sex, to not only be represented — but headline — is a big deal.

Saturday's Washington Post had a story about more women and girls entering into amateur boxing; earlier this month, the Times covered an all-female wrestling team, the first ever in Iraq. If you thought of these sports as being fueled by testosterone, it may be time to rethink.

The MMA matchup Saturday night was between Gina Carano, an American, and the intimidating Cris "Cyborg" Santos of Brazil. In a lengthy New York Times profile a couple of weeks ago, Carano was described as being "a defining figure at a defining moment for her sport — cast as part suffragette, part test case, part marketing ploy and part crossover star." She's strong, she's gorgeous, and she could make MMA — which is already a huge business — even more mainstream.

Unfortunately, Carano lost the fight, and didn't even make it past the first round. But in a pre-taped interview, when asked why she wanted to take on Cyborg, Carano said, "Because she's the best."

Christy Halbert, a coach of the national women's boxing team, who campaigned to have her boxers accepted alongside men in the 2012 Olympic Games (which is happening!), told the Times: "Any exposure of women combatants is probably good exposure in general." And Ken Hershman, the general manager for sports programming at Showtime (which aired the bout) said that Carano would face "a lot of pressure, but that's the way it should be, right, if you're going to headline?"

These women are passionate. Cris Cyborg once famously choked out an interviewer just to prove she could; and when Gina Carano spoke to the Times, her motivation and dedication were evident:

"I want it to be easier for other females to be able to walk into a gym and train, because it changed my life," she said. "I live in Las Vegas, where it's difficult to meet a gentleman who doesn't think of you as a stripper or a piece of meat. I like the training and the lifestyle. I get to wake up and focus on myself and being better. It eliminates all the drama when you have to think about somebody punching you and taking your head off."

It's clear that it's not about winning or losing, but about reveling in her strength and doing her best.

First Women's Main Event [NY Times]
From ‘Gladiator' To Headliner, Carano Has Chokehold On Fame [NY Times]
A Ring of One's Own [WaPo]
Female Iraqis Take On Tradition In Wrestling Ring [NY Times]
Women's Boxing Included On 2012 Olympics List [CNN]

[Image via Showtime]

According to a story by Katie Thomas in today's Times, families are more likely to travel with their daughters to sporting events than with their sons. "There are far more people who will travel with 12-year-old girls than even 12-year-old boys," explains Don Schumacher, executive director of the National Association of Sports Commissions, "And vastly more people will travel with 12-year-old girls than 18-year-old boys." This may have to do with families being more protective of girls, or with moms being more likely to attend girls' events.

Whatever the cause, the phenomenon translates into money. Families who travel with their kids stay in hotels, eat in restaurants, and buy things. Mika Ryan, president of a sporting commission in New Jersey, says she considers the often more lucrative nature of girls' sports when booking events. And now that it has built a new softball complex, the city of Chattanooga, Tennessee is enjoying a boost in revenue from girls and their families. At least one naysayer doubts that girl athletes buy more than boys. Bobby Dodd, president of the Amateur Athletic Union, says, "I have three granddaughters. They love to shop. But I can tell you my boys darn near love to shop as much as the girls." Dodd's words notwithstanding, it's clear that girls' sports are getting attention from families and businesses alike.

Though it's a little sad that families feel they have to "protect" their girl athletes more than their boys, it's nice to hear that the days of ignoring girls' sports are over. Not so, however, for women's sports. On NPR, Frank Deford examines the financial difficulties of many women's pro leagues. The Women's United Soccer Association folded in 2003, the WNBA's Houston Comets are the only major sports team so far to go out of business in the recession, and the LPGA recently fired its commissioner amid a loss of sponsorship contracts. According to Deford, women just don't want to pay to watch women's games.

The solution: sex! Reacting to a Wimbledon official's comment that it's often the hottest female players who are chosen to play on show courts, Deford writes,

Everybody was aghast at such overt chauvinism, only the harsh reality is that until women start stepping up and buying tickets for women's games, then - like it or not - sex may simply be good box office.

Ten years later, what do most people remember about the 1999 World Cup - that Brandi Chastain scored the winning goal? No, that Brandi Chastain took her shirt off.

But apparently teams think only the "right" kind of sex sells tickets. According to Mike Wise of the Washington Post, the WNBA's Washington Mystics don't have a kiss-cam at their games because they're worried about displaying lesbian fans kissing. Lindsey Harding, the team's point guard (pictured, right), says, "We wouldn't broadcast on our Jumbotron about abortion issues because of the religious and political conflicts it would cause. It's a similar, sensitive subject. We don't want to put anything out there to turn down certain fans." A lesbian kiss similar to abortion? Apparently, if all you're thinking about is the box office, yes. Wise writes,

This is a seminal, scary time for women's professional sports. Ten years after Brandi Chastain's ab-crunching moment in the women's World Cup ushered in a new era of empowerment, less than half of the LPGA Tour's 29 events have secured sponsorship for next year. Though attendance numbers are up in Washington, the league can barely pull in an average of 8,000 people per game and many of its arenas hold 20,000.

In a time when TV networks stay silent about male athletes' rape allegations, how come women's teams have to curry favor with bigoted fans? Is it really true that women don't want to pay to watch women play? Or are women's professional sports just too new — and as yet too under-marketed — to capture the kind of audience that men's sports have? Just because we live in a culture where women are more often celebrated for their looks than their athletic prowess doesn't mean all women athletes have to take off their shirts. It just means we need to train audiences to follow women's sports with the same rabid passion they've long had for the Dodgers or the Lakers. And given the fact that families seem to turn out in droves to watch their girls compete, that shouldn't be so hard to do.

Girls' Sports Pack Economic Punch [NYT]
Deford: 'That's No Lady, That's An Athlete!' [NPR]
Mystics Give Big Issue The Kiss-Off [Washington Post, via Pandagon]

[Kaohsiung, July 21. Image via Getty]

Portugese gymnast Ana Oliveira competes in the tumbling women's qualification competition at the World Games in Kaohsiung on July 21, 2009. The World Games drew more than 4,700 athletes from across the globe to compete in 31 sports not included in the Olympics. AFP PHOTO/Sam YEH (Photo credit should read SAM YEH/AFP/Getty Images)

[Huntington Beach, July 19. Image via Getty]

HUNTINGTON BEACH, CA - JULY 19: Nage Melamed (Hawaii) goes off the top in her first round heat during the Nike 6.0 Junior Women's Grade 4 event as part of the 2009 Hurley U.S. Open of Surfing on July 19, 2009 in Huntington Beach, California. (Photo by Victor Decolongon/Getty Images)

[Saint-Denis, France; July 17. Image via Getty]

US Sanya Richards (L) reacts after competing in the women's 400m event of the Paris IAAF Golden League meeting on July 17, 2009 at the Stade de France in Saint-Denis, near Paris. AFP PHOTO/ BERTRAND GUAY (Photo credit should read BERTRAND GUAY/AFP/Getty Images)

[Sydney, July 16. Image via Getty]

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA - JULY 16: Fans of the Netherlands celebrate during the Women's Hockey Champions Trophy match between the Netherlands and Argentina at Sydney Olympic Park Hockey Centre on July 16, 2009 in Sydney, Australia. (Photo by Mark Nolan/Getty Images)

[Brixone Bressanone, Italy; July 10. Image via Getty]

BRIXONE BRESSANONE, ITALY - JULY 10: Lina Muze of Latvia in the girl's javelin qualification during day three of the Iaaf World Youth Championships at the Bressanone Sports Complex on July 10, 2009 in Brixone Bressanone, Italy. (Photo by Michael Steele/Getty Images)

In his weekly sports column for The Nation, David Zirin writes that many have dismissed the revelation of sexist practices at Wimbledon, and some sportswriters are even defending the practice. L.Z. Granderson, writing in his ESPN column, says that he "found the Wimbledon officials honesty quite refreshing," adding:

Organizers are trying to sell their sport and believe the casual, straight male fan is more apt to watch attractive women-because if they had a love of the game, they wouldn't be casual fans, would they? In a sport in which Anna Kournikova, a player without a singles title, can become the most popular on tour, no one should be surprised by any of this.

As mentioned earlier, Jason Whitlock of Fox Sports was similarly unfazed by the biased practices at Wimbledon. In fact, he argued that the only thing preventing Serena Williams from being as big as Michael Jordan is that she spends too much time whining about sexism in tennis. Instead, she should accept the fact that sex sells and focus on reducing the size of her butt to a more media-friendly size.

According to Zirin, research by University of Minnesota sports sociologist Dr. Mary Jo Kane shows that sexy images of female athletes may make that women bigger celebrities but they don't translate into a deeper interest in their sport. Kane showed men and women sexy images of female athletes and found that while they may sell magazines, they didn't make the viewer any more invested in women's sports, and may actually alienate existing fans.

But, Kane says the focus on a female players' looks actually goes much deeper than just selling sports with sex appeal:

"This is also about what runs in the bone marrow of women's sports, namely homophobia. They are very well-meaning but they also want to distance themselves from the lesbian label. How do you do that? You reassure the viewing audiences, the corporate sponsors, the TV networks, and the female athletes themselves, that, No, no, no- sports won't make your daughter gay. Women's sports will be more acceptable if you believe, even though it is stereotypical and inaccurate, that if you are pretty and feminine in a traditional sense then you are not gay."

So as women struggle to be taken seriously as athletes, not just sex symbols, on the court, they're actually trapped between sexism and homophobia. The two stereotypes are are present even in the "grunting" controversy, in which the sounds female players make have been described alternately as sexual or overly masculine in nature. While the conventionally pretty Michelle Larcher de Brito has been called "more of a shrieker," last night during an interview with Serena Williams (clip below), David Letterman described the sound Williams makes as "kind of noise you associate with mayhem, like cage fighting."

At the core of both stereotypes is the idea that athleticism is inherently masculine. While women's sports are supposed to be about greater equality and empowerment, female athletes are still expected to strike a balance between being too sexy and not attractive enough. Unfortunately, until Serena Williams grunting on the court and wearing a dress and pearls during an interview are seen as equally feminine, there won't be a level playing field for women in sports.

Sexism On Centre Court [The Nation]
Finding The Beauty In Ugly [ESPN]

Earlier: Foul Ball
In Defense Of Grunts
Female Tennis Players: Faking It Like Meg Ryan?
Grunting Controversy Continues On Wimbledon's Opening Day

[Marlow, U.K.; June 30. Image via Getty]

MARLOW, UNITED KINGDOM - JULY 01: Anna Blasse of Germany stops flying with the ball Claire Rafferty of England during the Women's U23 international friendly match between England and Germany at The National Sports Centre on July 01, 2009 in Marlow, England. (Photo by Tom Dulat/Getty Images)

[London, June 30. Image via Getty]

US tennis player Venus Williams plays against Poland's Agnieszka Radwanska in a Women's Quarter Final match of the 2009 Wimbledon Tennis Championships at the All England Tennis Club, in southwest London, on June 30, 2009. AFP PHOTO/CARL DE SOUZA (Photo credit should read CARL DE SOUZA/AFP/Getty Images)