Female Athletes are Undercovered. These Olympians

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Female Athletes are Undercovered. These Olympians

Alex Morgan’s life has been very busy during the past few years. She won the World Cup (again), filed a case against her workplace for discriminatory pay practises, and gave birth to a daughter, Charlie, in the midst of a global epidemic. She’s already a successful businesswoman, and soon she’ll be a media magnate, too.

Morgan, Sue Bird, Simone Manuel, and Chloe Kim have founded a firm called TOGETHXR, which they call “a media and commerce company meant to elevate women’s voices,” specifically but not primarily within the realm of athletics.

Female Athletes are Undercovered. These Olympians

They are joining the ranks of other athlete-founded media ventures, like as Derek Jeter’s The Players’ Tribune, LeBron James’ UNINTERRUPTED, and Kevin Durant’s Thirty Five Ventures.

Morgan teamed up with an all-star cast of sportsmen who have garnered widespread acclaim for their achievements in a variety of sports. Bird has won four WNBA championships and four Olympic gold medals.

In addition to becoming the first Black woman to win an individual event in Olympic swimming, Manuel made history during the 2016 Rio Games by bringing home four medals.

In addition, Kim won the gold medal in the snowboard halfpipe event at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang. (Many thought that at the age of 13, Kim would have been eligible for the same prize in 2014, but she was not.)

It is the goal of TOGETHXR’s founders that they have launched the company at a critical juncture in the history of women’s athletics.

Organizations with new concepts, such as Athletes Unlimited’s volleyball and softball leagues, are emerging, while women’s soccer leagues are expanding across Europe and the United States.

The importance of these women using their platforms to literally affect political and cultural change is at a fever pitch, according to Jessica Robertson, TOGETHXR’s chief content officer.

“There is more conscious investment and viewership, engagement is growing, cultural rhetoric is there,” she said. And this company is either joining or following closely behind that trend.

The founders are well aware of the importance of passing the baton on to new leaders and are willing to do so. Bird stated that she and her coworkers were less important to the organisation than Alex, Chloe, and Simone.

Since we’re discussing the dearth of coverage afforded to female athletes, it goes without saying that we could all use more positive attention in the media. It wasn’t for us; it’s for the future.

TOGETHXR’s first endeavour is a YouTube documentary series centred on Chantel “Chicanita” Navarro, a 17-year-old national boxing champion. Features like this one really pique Bird’s interest.

She remarked, “Even for someone like me, it’s amazing that there’s going to be a chance for that story to get told; I don’t know much about boxing, and I don’t know much about Chantel.”

Magnet Companies, a private equity holding company created by seasoned media professionals, has made a “mid-seven-figure investment” in TOGETHXR.

According to Robertson, the business plan includes producing material for and forming partnerships with social networking sites, as well as forming licencing arrangements and selling items. Girls and young women who are interested in athletics as well as activism, culture, wellness, and beauty are the target demographic.

TOGETHXR has an Evident Advantage Over other Media Companies Formed by Athletes because it was Founded by Women.

Male athletes, regardless of whether they’ve started their own media companies or not, get constant coverage from the mainstream media. However, top female athletes, such as Kim and Manuel, are if anything inadequately covered, as they are the focus of a media frenzy for two weeks during the Olympics and then mostly disappear from view for the next four years.

“I never had any posters of female athletes in my room as a kid, and it wasn’t because I didn’t enjoy sports,” Morgan explained. Truthfully, I didn’t know nearly as much about female athletes to have posters of them on my wall and consider them role models.

Female athletes, in part because they have to be, can also make for more engaging subjects than male athletes. While million-dollar contracts are standard in male sports, women’s sports have largely failed to catch on, with the notable exception of Serena Williams. For media coverage, they have to compete for scraps.

It’s not like we have $40 million stashed away in the bank to last for however long,” Morgan added. We don’t have a million dollar endorsement deal with a single shoe maker. You have to be more than just a female athlete to succeed.

In an interview, Robertson described TOGETHXR as a “identity” brand that will reflect the “multi-hyphenate” nature of today’s young women.

She goes on to note that Alex is much more than simply a talented soccer player; he is also a dedicated parent, dedicated activist, successful businessman, and dedicated student.

Just as women’s bodies are intrinsically political and politicised, so too are women’s sports, despite the best efforts of the athletes involved. Manuel, who spent most of the pandemic swimming laps in her backyard pool in preparation for the next Olympics, believes that women are “bursting at the seams to share these experiences” because of the myriad challenges they face in athletics and in life.

It could also mean that they have more interesting stories to tell than, say, male athletes who might start focusing on a multimillion-dollar career at the age of 14 and begin media training at the age of 16. Manuel wants to tell stories about Black hair, mental health, minorities in swimming, and maybe cooking.

Final Words

If you’re a woman in athletics, especially, you constantly hear, “you’re too much of this or not enough of that,” as Manuel put it. “It’s not an innate awareness; it’s a result. There isn’t enough respect for women athletes and their athletic performance, so you have to differentiate yourself if we’re talking about real money potential.

While the founders of TOGETHXR recognise that success can take numerous forms, they always revolve around shifting that framework.

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