To Raise the Profile of Minor Sports, Ensure Equal Treatment of All Athletes, No Matter How Unsuccessful

On a rather chilly October afternoon, a half-empty stadium feels a bit gloomy even for the most ardent fans. A massive soccer stadium, home to the professional male and female teams for Chiba, was half-sealed off to make the crowds look a bit bigger (and likely the game a bit easier to manage). During the 90 minutes of the female team's game against visitors from Nagano, fans had to stare at the opposite side of the stadium, completely devoid of souls under the cloudless sky, as shouts and drumming of the team's (semi-official) fan club members echoed through the empty stands.

Professional soccer stadiums are designed with a capacity of 10,000 in mind. For this game, a little more than 2,000 spectators showed up, even though the municipal government handed out free tickets to the city's residents and the team itself worked with local universities to both boost attendance and increase marketing footprint. Granted, the game was rather tedious, with no notable moment and the only goal coming from an error by a defender. But given the small local population and the lack of TV coverage, the content of the game itself may not be the only thing that explains the low level of general interest.

Indeed, not only in Japan but everywhere, women's sports, especially at the professional level, have largely been seen as a mere "sidekick" to the more popular men's versions. And because the male version has more spectators, it draws more advertising and thus more sales revenues to their corporate sponsors. More income for the sponsors means more funding to invest in male athletes, who receive better facilities, training, and salaries. Pure economics also guarantees that female sports are relegated to the second class. The half-closed stadium in Chiba for the female soccer game no doubt testifies to this sad reality.

But the differing treatment of male and female versions of the same sports should not be just seen from an economic angle. The desire to play sports, if taken out of the social context that disparages women's sports as uneconomical, should not differ much between the sexes. The game of soccer, for instance, has nothing in terms of rules and regulations that make it more accessible to a man than a woman. And the same set of rules means that irrespective of gender, the enjoyment of playing it, both at the recreational and the professional level, should be quite similar.

The level of seriousness among the players on the field in the mostly empty field in Chiba attests to that much. Even though the cheers of good plays from the stands are sparse and quickly disappear among the empty seats, the women on the field cannot be at all faulted for not playing their hardest. They ran just as hard as their male counterparts, on a field of the same size and the same 90-minute game. And just like the male game, only three substitutes are allowed, meaning that most players stayed on for the whole game, chasing the ball up and down the field.

For equal effort put into the game, it makes no moral and ethical sense that the female players should not be rewarded as much as the male ones. They should, at the very least, get the same level of medical treatments to handle the same likelihood of on- and off-field injuries, the same nutritionally considerate food to power their long-term performance, as well as the same professional support to help them both during their athletic careers and after retirement. Right now, there is no indication that such equality between the sexes is present in any major sport.

Granted, inequality is not just between the sexes. Rankings of the world's richest athletes belies the fact that very few professional athletes "make it" from a purely financial perspective. Most athletes do not win medals in international competitions. Many play professional sports that have very little media coverage and public attention. And many are simply not strong enough, fast enough, and skilled enough to make it to the professional level despite sacrificing what seems to be everything else in their lives to make it to the top. For every globally acclaimed sporting star, millions struggle.

Just like female athletes, those who devoted their lives to sports should receive adequate external help even if they do not generate significant revenues for their sponsors. It is their devoted presence at the community, regional, national, and global levels that forced the best of the best to continue playing their best and improve even after reaching the top. The countless newcomers coming in make no star content with the status quo, thus improving the quality of sports for their spectators. Isn't the upsets, the underdogs, and the falling of past stars the most memorable and popular moments of any sport?