A History of Less

Elite women's sports have almost always drawn less attention than the equivalent male sport. But women's endurance sports share a unique pain. Whereas many female athletes compete a similar number of times per year (or more, whether or not those competitions get covered), elite female cyclists have to get by with having between 1/5 and 1/4 the available events per season, although that number has been getting slightly better in recent years.  Up until recently, even in the Olympic games were female endurance athletes allowed to compete.

The Female Perspective

Additionally, when women's sports are broadcast, announcers tend to spend more time discussing women's personal lives (spouses, children, hobbies and education) than they do for the men. 

Live Coverage

In 2015, the UCI broadcast just over 151 hours of the ten Women's WorldTour events to a global audience. While there are no direct figures for the men's events, if you take just the three Grand Tour events (Giro d'Italia, Le Tour de France, La Vuelta de España, 63 total days of racing) and air just the last two hours of each stage, 126 hours have aired in just three events. If every WorldTour race received just two hours of coverage (which is a low estimate, many spring races receive closer to three and a half), the total men's broadcast time comes to just under 600 hours per year.

Eurosport broadcasts most every cycling event and Nordic ski race each year, but the difference in coverage is quite large. For Nordic, they will air both genders events in almost their entirety, airing in total over 100 hours of Nordic skiing in four months.