Photo: NFL
Katie Sowers: A Powerhouse in the NFL
By: Charlotte Smith, Sarah Wilson, and Kinley DuRant
What to Know:
The world of sports is off to an exciting start in 2020, making major strides towards equality within players and staff. After the San Francisco 49ers defeated the Green Bay Packers in the NFC Championship on Sunday, media attention turned to one coach that will be taking the team to the Super Bowl, Katie Sowers. Sowers, the offensive assistant coach, will be making history as not only the first female to coach in famous championship, but also the first openly LGBTQ+.
Alongside professional football, the world of baseball is also breaking gender barriers. Earlier this week, the San Francisco Giants announced their hire of Alyssa Nakken, the first female coach in the MLB. With an overwhelming majority of it taking place on Twitter (98.2%), the conversation regarding these women spiked significantly upon the news. These female trailblazers gained almost 10,000 social media mainstream news mentions in 24 hours, and continued to rise over the following days.
The top trending words in the conversation were “Assistant,” most likely due to Sower’s assistant coaching position, “Barriers,” relating to the gender norms that are being broken, as well as “Big,” “NFL,” and “Niners.” Associated words were “Guys,” “LGBTQ,” “Journey,” “Organization,” and “Beer.” A few of these trending words as well as much of the reported negative sentiments, are from one commonly re-shared post by comedian, Dana Goldberg, criticizing the Katie Sowers haters.
The conversation mostly occurred in the US with some activity in Canada, the UK, and Mexico. The main participants in this conversation were general public accounts, commonly reposting or replying to official account reports. There were no major leading official accounts acting as influencers on the topic, although popular companies and brands have begun to capitalize on the women’s historic roles. For example, Microsoft recently featured Sowers in an omnipresent commercial on American network television, broadcasting her success to an even larger audience.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hU39FPGalQ
Sports fans are an extremely engaged online audience and social media can play a key role in establishing women as valuable playmakers within the industry. Listening to the social media landscape on females’ role in sports administrations is crucial for teams looking to engage and expand their fan base to young women.
