Jemele Hill Posts Misleading Study to Suggest There Are Too Many ‘White Men’ in Sports Media

Jemele Hill dismissed calls to add men to WNBA broadcasts as “deeply unserious,” arguing that the sports media industry is overrun by “White men.”

Earlier this week, NBA reporter Ric Bucher pointed to the lack of diversity on WNBA studio shows, which are staffed predominantly by Black women. Bucher suggested networks like ESPN and NBC add a male voice to the conversation.

Hill responded to Bucher’s post by citing what she called the “latest stats.”

“— 83 percent of sports editors are white men — 75 percent of assistant sports editors are white men — 82 percent of columnists are white men — 67 percent of sports anchors are white men — 68 percent of sports analysts are white men — 65 percent of sports producers are white men.

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Her statistics appear to trace back to a 2018 study called the “Associated Press Sports Editors Racial and Gender Report Card,” published by the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport. Using that study to characterize who holds the most influential jobs in sports media is grossly misleading.

The report lumps vastly different jobs into the same broad picture. An entry-level anchor working weekends at a local station is given the same weight as a lead anchor for NBC, ESPN, CBS, or Fox. And that’s before considering questions about the study’s sample size and methodology.

For example, perhaps there are three white male anchors in Traverse City, Michigan, making $50,000 a year. (This is hypothetical. Don’t protest outside their studios.) In a vacuum, that might suggest favoritism toward white men, or it may simply reflect the gender and racial makeup of sports broadcasters in the area.

Either way, consider the most prominent anchor jobs in sports media, starting with the most prestigious hosting assignment in American sports: the Super Bowl.

A white man has not been the lead host of a Super Bowl pregame or halftime show since, wait for it, 2018. That was Dan Patrick’s final year in the role for NBC.

Since then, the Super Bowl has been hosted by NBC’s Mike Tirico and Maria Taylor, Fox’s Curt Menefee and CBS’s James Brown.

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There are now industry rumblings that Netflix will join the Super Bowl rotation in 2029. The streamer recently announced Elle Duncan as its lead anchor. Duncan is a Black woman.

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Hill also complained that there are too many white male analysts. Again, maybe during the Saturday wrap-up in Iowa. Likewise, many of the top analyst jobs are held by Black former NFL and NBA players.

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