Why beach volleyball? New Games a step back for equality
All-female Aurora event in US shows problem women’s sport faces to put bums on seats, says Fiona Tomas
Yes, these sports are entertaining, but they give rise to a sinking feeling
Imagine a biennial event where you can watch tennis, gymnastics, figure skating, ice hockey, basketball and beach volleyball all in the same place – but only female athletes are invited. Cue the inaugural Aurora Games, a six-day “entertainment” competition in Albany, the New York state capital, where Team Americas take on Team World, captained respectively by three-time Olympic gold medallist Jackie Joynerkersee and gymnastics icon Nadia Comaneci.
This is an event where female athletes do not only take centre stage, but sport serves to inspire, educate and empower women. Snippets of its forwardthinking philosophy were seen in the “Next Generation” T-shirts worn by dozens of girls excitedly clutching their rackets outside at the Times Union Center ahead of the tennis competition on Tuesday,
waiting to catch a glimpse of Garbine Muguruza up close.
Judge Rosemarie Aquilina, who presided over the case of the disgraced United States Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar, was one of several high-profile females to speak, urging women to “keep the conversation moving forward” and prioritise athletes’ safety and welfare over money and medals.
The innovative gymnastics shape-up has also been a hit, starring Youtube sensation Katelyn Ohashi in a format that scraps the traditional vault and uneven bars in favour of parkour and power tumbling. It is an inspired approach at a time when US Gymnastics is fighting for its credibility after the Nassar scandal.
However, poor attendances and eerily empty fan zones have marred this platform for women’s sport. The gymnastics, arguably the biggest draw, has struggled to attract sell-out crowds, while concerns were raised that the equipment, including the floor carpet – believed to be installed over an ice rink – was wet. The result? A barrage of warped opinions on women’s sport and its credibility.
One male Twitter user likened the event to a “mini-olympics for females” (newsflash: women have been competing in the Olympic Games since 1900). Another said it was like “eating a bag of potato chips instead of a real dinner”.
The event’s poor turnout is synonymous with the constant battle women’s sport faces to put bums on seats. Even the football World Cup was not immune to this, with only 13,188 fans attending England’s group game against Scotland.
If women’s sport is to thrive, it needs to be accessible. A quick google of the ticket prices shows the best seats to watch the volleyball session on Sunday cost up to £105, while an under-12 child ticket for today’s figure skating could set a parent back by up to £30.
Among the mish-mash of sports, three of the six are overtly more feminine, and this prompts scepticism. Figure skating warranted its place courtesy of the event’s organiser, Jerry Solomon, being the husband of former figure skating champion Nancy Kerrigan. But why beach volleyball and gymnastics?
Yes, these sports are entertaining in their own right, but inadvertently give rise to a sinking feeling that this might be about pushing a more feminised image of women’s sport, subverting to the male gaze, than genuinely championing sport for women. What about giving a platform to sports that struggle for a place in the limelight – such as taekwondo, judo or boxing. Don’t they deserve a slice of the action, too?
This shiny new concept seems a retrograde approach at a time when women’s sport is making strides in equality. This week, for example, World Rugby became the first major sporting federation to adopt gender-neutral naming for tournaments after it announced that the next Women’s Rugby World Cup would be rebranded as Rugby World Cup 2021.
London City Lionesses kicked off their season in the FA Women’s Championship last Sunday as a new professional entity, the first to operate independently from a men’s club.
If anything, the Aurora Games has proved you cannot generate ticket sales just because women are the common denominator.
In its battle to continue advancing into the mainstream, this arguably bizarre and feminised event with its pick-and-mix assortment of sports seems counterintuitive.