Across many industries, and including professional sports teams, the backgrounds and credentials of key organization personnel are being increasingly examined. Perhaps there has never been a greater clamor for teams to bring people of diverse backgrounds to the organization and to make hiring decisions based solely off of qualifications.
Representation matters. The Philadelphia 76ers’ and Milwaukee Bucks’ announcements – which occurred just eight days apart – that Lisa Byington and Kate Scott would assume the teams’ play-by-play voices duties beginning with the 2021-22 NBA season left impressions that extended well beyond each fan base and the overarching basketball community.
The two hires impacted moms, dads, young girls and women, aspiring female sports journalists, and so many other people for various reasons. Time and time again, sports have served as a vehicle for social progress, and the Sixers and Bucks have now created a couple of such instances. Both teams not only affirmed the notion that women belong in basketball, but their decisions are also significant because they demonstrate to other current and future female announcers that they too can attain the instrumental role in delivering an enjoyable fan experience they have worked their entire careers for. Women do not have to hope that day arrives. Because now, it already has. Twice.
Women occupying play-by-play, managerial and other pivotal positions in sports is becoming increasingly common. With Byington and Scott blazing the path for more women to enter the broadcast booth, the world is seeing just the beginning of sports teams and organizations committing to and investing in hardworking, deserving women.
Not just in sports media, but in all industries, a woman’s talent and dedication to her craft is worth just as much as a man’s. The difference between a young girl tuning in to a Sixers or Bucks game this season compared to last season is this time around a woman will take her through a Giannis Antetokounmpo fast break or break down a momentum-swinging Tyrese Maxey and Joel Embiid alley-oop.
That matters. In sports media, representation matters.
The voice a young girl hears during Bucks and Sixers games does not have to be a female’s, but it may be especially inspiring for her if it is.
She might think, “Someday, that’s going to be me on TV. If she can do it, I can do it.”
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