Problems with Fox's Super Bowl Coverage - The Omission of WNBA’s Seattle Storm

2010 Seattle Storm Championship Ring

During its coverage of Super Bowl XLVIII, Fox claimed that Seattle's manhandling of Denver brought the first championship title to the Emerald City since the 1979 Seattle SuperSonics NBA Title. Furthermore, Fox claimed that the '79 NBA Title was Seattle's only professional sports championship.

Both of Fox's claims were far from the truth as Seattle holds four major sports titles:

1. 1917 Stanley Cup (won by the Seattle Metropolitans)
2. 1979 NBA Title (won by the Sonics)
3. 2004 WNBA Title (won by the Seattle Storm)
4. 2010 WNBA Title (won by the Storm)

While I can somewhat understand the omission of the Stanley Cup because the NHL as we know it didn't exist, omitting the Storm's two titles is indicative of a problem in the male-dominated world of sports. To me, the biggest transgressor in the world of sports is the former Lingerie Football League, which has recently been rebranded as the Legends Football League.

Players in the LFL are forced to wear little protective gear even though they're hitting one another at full speed. Considering some parts of players' bodies are completely uncovered, the risks of bruises, cuts, scrapes and worse are much higher. The players' safety concerns have barely been addressed.

But I digress. Back to the omission of the Seattle Storm.

In an article by Forbes writer Kurt Badenhausen, Badenhausen wrote, "The city of Seattle has not celebrated a championship in a major pro sport (we’re not counting the two titles by the WNBA’s Seattle Storm) since the Seattle SuperSonics in 1979."

Although Badenhausen elaborated that he would have also excluded the Seattle Sounders, the problem still exists that professional women's leagues are far behind that of men's leagues, and that women's leagues aren't receiving the support and respect they need or deserve.

Per SI.com's Chris Mascaro:

“It’s time to look at this quantifier for what it is — sexist,” [Jayda] Evans wrote. “The WNBA is the only successful women’s professional league in America. That makes it major. And that has to be recognized. Period. Finding a way to not mention it when simply throwing out a list of titles attached to a city is blatantly disregarding women’s pro sports and a city’s pride in its teams’ accomplishments.”

For Evans' original article, which contains a large number of tweets from Storm CEO Karen Bryant and three-time WNBA MVP Lauren Jackson, click here.

Women's sports deserve much more respect and support from the media and the greater community. My family lives just an hour away from Seattle and I never get to hear very much about the Storm. I think such an occurrence deprives every from watching and reading about quality sports.