The Sideline Fix

As a lover of sport, I follow ESPN. I admit though, I am not very into basketball. So in a move very unlike me, I clicked on a WNBA story from their community tab on YouTube.

I knew nothing about the WNBA player Jonquel Jones, nor the significance of her trade to the Connecticut Sun, which was the key story on the post. I went to the comments section, like I was phoning a friend on a trivia show, hoping to get some answers. And instead I got this:

The comments were completely irrelevant and entirely unhelpful to me in my pursuit of knowledge. What in the world does Chipotle have to do with this? I kept scrolling, hoping to find something useful and to understand what in the world was happening. Finally I got to this post:

ESPN knows this will happen? What? Why? Eventually I would get to some comments regarding the trade.

But the most eye-opening post as this one:

People apparently feel ESPN is ramming WNBA content down their throats. I had to find out if it were true. I went on to check 160 posts dating back 10 days, starting with that post from January 16 2023.

• 10 posts were directly about women
• 2 were related to the WNBA
• 2 were focused on women’s NCAA basketball
• 1 on gymnastics
• 2 on tennis
• 1 ski
• 1 soccer
• 1 WWE

All of the women’s basketball posts, pro and college, followed the same pattern of unrelated comments. There were some irrelevant comments on the post congratulating Sophia Smith on being US Soccer’s player of the year, but they largely focused on the athlete. Granted, many were just to say they don’t follow her or think soccer is dumb. At least they were on topic.

For the most part, comments on the post regarding NCAA gymnast Nikki Smith were off topic. Naomi Osaka largely received well wishes on her pregnancy, with some asking about her relationship to the father of the child. Venus William had her career considered and passion for the game validated as she continued on despite injury. Stephanie McMahon was saluted for stepping down from her role in the WWE, as commenters slighted her father. Mikaela Shiffrin was praised, but also called not that good of a skier.

Given less than ten percent of the coverage was focused on women’s sports, less so even on women’s basketball, what is the reason commenters felt so outraged? Their comments on posts by and large tell the world they don’t care, but their actions are telling the world something else. If they are so disinterested in women’s sports, why are they engaging so heavily on those posts? Are they not aware that the YouTube algorithm considers any engagement good engagement? That if they go out of their way to comment on women’s basketball posts, that the AI of YouTube will give them more of that content. And it is not ESPN that is ramming the content down their throats? And that it is in fact them, in their keyboard warrior battle cries calling out for more and more of it?