What do racing’s Danica Patrick, tennis’s Anna Kournikova, swimming’s Amanda Beard all have in common aside from being female athletes?
Their names probably ring a bell because they’re hotties.
Patrick is the sweetheart of the Indy Racing League, despite not yet reaching the victory lane in American racing. She’s competing against the top male drivers in the world and has certainly proved she can hang with the hot-shot boys. Patrick was named Rookie of the Year for both the 2005 Indy 500 and the 2005 IndyCar Series season. Patrick isn’t just a female athlete; she’s a female athlete in a male-dominated culture.
Despite her lack of winning performances, she easily makes more money in endorsements than any of her competitors. She’s been the face of Coca-Cola, AirTran and Secret deodorant. She’s also noted for her appearance in the 2008 Sports Illustrated’s swimsuit edition and in Jay-Z’s
“Show Me What You Got” music video.
So the question is: would the dark-haired beauty be so famous if she looked like the back-end of a hippopotamus? In this day of image-obsessed America, I’m going to go with a giant, feminist “no.”
Iconic ladies who did so much for the liberation of women would be proud, I’m sure.
Kournikova set the precedent for female athletes who aren’t necessary hot on their field of play, but smokin’ hot in the pages of Maxim or FHM.
Googling her name doesn’t bring up images of her on the tennis court, but rather of her scantily clad in a bikini with an ocean breeze whipping through her long blond locks. She’s so entrenched in American media that one might forget she’s Russian.
After turning pro in 1995, she never won a singles title. Not one. She endured both injuries and heavy criticism for her lack of winning titles throughout her career and eventually retired from tennis at age 25. She has not left the spotlight or the camera lens though, thanks to her romantic relationship with singer Enrique Iglesias and modeling deals.
Beard is a little different from Patrick and Kournikova though. Sure, she too is a desktop background on guys’ computers across the world, but, she’s actually proven to be one of the best athletes in her sport.
Beard represented America three times in the Olympic Games since her debut in 1996. She took home the Gold in the 4x100 meter medley relay in Atlanta, the Bronze in the 200 meter breaststroke in Sydney and the Gold in the same event in Athens. She was the face of American female Olympians and an idol to aspiring swimmers worldwide.
However, type in her name in any search engine and one of the first pictures to pop up is of her on the cover of Playboy magazine. There’s no question that she has the figure and face to make her a cover model, but had she not been a champion swimmer, would Playboy have contacted her at all?
Jennie Finch, the blonde bombshell of softball, is different. She’s undeniably pretty, but she’s also an icon in women’s sports. She’s admired by the ladies and respected by the men.
She first started receiving national attention for her talents on the mound with the University of Arizona’s softball team as a freshman in 2001. Finch later joined the 2004 Olympic team and helped the United States earn a Gold medal. She’s also noted for the looks of astonishment on the faces of major league baseball’s biggest sluggers after her signature pitches zip past them with ease on Fox’s “This Week in Baseball.”
Taking into account the distance from the mound to the plate in softball, her 71-mph riseball is the equivalent of nearly a 100-mph fastball in baseball.
However, unlike Beard, Finch turned down a lucrative deal with Playboy. Finch instead graced the cover of SI in 2005 wearing a miniskirt and tank top. She’s admitted she embraces the attention she receives for being an attractive athlete, and she wants to encourage young girls that “muscles don’t mean you can’t be beautiful.” Finch made an appearance in the 2005 SI swimsuit issue in a spread that had her wearing both a modest one piece and sexy bikinis.
So what’s the deal, American sports fans? Sure, everyone with a set of functioning eyes takes notice of a hot girl on the cover of a magazine.
And yes, American athletes are, and always have been, icons within our culture. So, is combining these two forces a marketing gold mine or a setback for women’s liberation?
Is it sending the message to little girls that if they want to become a famous athlete, they need to work on their skin-care regimen just as much as their backswing?
The sad truth is this: if you’re a female athlete who is breaking records and setting precedents in your sport, good for you. If you do that and you’re a sexy piece of eye candy, congratulations — you’re an advertiser’s jackpot.
It pains me to even type these following words: the Lingerie Football League. Yes, you read that correctly. The popular pay-per-view Superbowl halftime show, the Lingerie Bowl, is now going to be an actual league. Eight teams with names like the San Francisco Seduction and the Dallas Desire will have female “athletes” wearing shoulder pads and helmets complete with bras and panties playing tackle football. It’s like an NC-17 version of high school Powder Puff. Oh yeah, Dennis Rodman was named commissioner of the league in 2005. I couldn’t possibly make that up.
The biggest advertisement demographic is 18 to 34-year-old men. Surely, they will think the LFL is going to be “totally awesome” and will watch games in hopes of the wide receiver’s bra bursting open and she runs down the end zone topless.
My point that only attractive women athletes are the ones who are famous is slightly less profound since that superficial mentality is also in the men’s market.
Would Tom Brady be Movado’s and Stetson’s model if he didn’t have those ideal model features? If Derek Jeter looked more like Randy Johnson instead of the fine male specimen that he is, would he be in Gatorade and Visa commercials?
Perhaps if this year’s Superbowl had the Giants taking on the Patriots in their boxer briefs, more women would join their husbands or boyfriends on the couch for the big game. However, 296-pound center Dan Koppen bending over in tighty whities may eliminate the appeal of Brady in his skivvies.
Luckily for men, they don’t have to overcome the same obstacles their female counterparts do. Guys’ skills are noticed first, and then their physical attributes. Sadly, no one notices a female athlete if she doesn’t look good in a bikini.
