Double Standard

Pam Oliver was replaced by Erin Andrews and FoxSports because she was too old for TV, while there was no thought of getting rid of the late Craig Sager, who served as a sideline reporter for most of his life.

These women are overqualified to be sideline reporters, yet they are basically doing the same thing as the cheerleaders on the sideline, which is simply entertaining the male gaze. When they become too old they are replaced easily, unlike male sideline reporters who are regarded as longtime legends.

 

While the statement below by Paul Willis refers to female athletes instead of female sportscasters it is still applicable (even after thirty-five years).

“[T]he female athlete is rendered a sex object—a body which may excel in sport, but which is primarily an object of pleasure for men. A useful technique, for if a woman seems to be encroaching too far, and too threateningly, into male sanctuaries, she can be symbolically vapourised and reconstituted as an object, a butt for smutty jokes and complacent elbow nudging. (Paul Willis 1982: 122)