The demand for misogyny in American sports far exceeds the available supply.
That’s a problem for USA Today columnist Nancy Armour.
Armour has built much of her professional brand around finding sexism and misogyny everywhere she looks in sports. So, what happens when women reach a better position in the sports world than ever before?
Armour has to look harder.
Much harder.
In a column published Tuesday, Armour argued that American sports are happy to take women’s money, but don’t want women in their space or to treat them with “even the slightest shred of decency.”
Strong claim.
What evidence did Armour use to support the idea that American sports, as a whole, don’t want women around?
A sports-betting ad featuring a nearly nude Sydney Sweeney, Arch Manning laughing at a stupid AI video, and an architectural rendering that included almost no women.
That’s it. That’s her entire case.
The arena rendering barely warrants a response. An architectural rendering of Philadelphia’s future arena showed almost no women, the image was replaced within two days, and the building will be home to the city’s WNBA team. If that is evidence that women aren’t welcome in sports, the definition of evidence has lost all meaning.
There’s another problem, though. Armour has no trouble finding misogyny in an advertisement, a joke or a computer-generated crowd. But when males take opportunities in women’s sports, she attacks the women who object.
That’s not an oversight. It’s the clearest evidence that this isn’t really about protecting women.
Armour starts with perhaps the most absurd characterization of the three.
“A betting company tells women their only place in sports is as a sexualized object,” Armour wrote.
Wait, when did Novig say that?
It didn’t.
Novig produced one advertisement featuring one woman, Sydney Sweeney, using sex appeal to promote a sports prediction market. Somehow, Armour took that to mean the company declared that every woman’s “only place in sports” is as a sexualized object.
That’s quite a leap.
The ad didn’t say anything about female athletes, female fans, female broadcasters or women’s sports. Plus, Novig isn’t selling “sports.” Sports are the subject matter. The product is gambling.
And the ad is clearly designed primarily to appeal to men, who make up the core audience for sports betting.
So what?
Not every product or advertisement has to appeal equally to men and women. Women’s clothing companies and cosmetics companies run ads aimed at women. Entire television networks and publishing genres cater primarily to women. No one treats that as evidence that those companies hate men.
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But when a betting company creates an ad tailored to its overwhelmingly male audience, Armour treats the existence of a male audience as the offense.
In Armour’s world, products aimed at women are called empowerment, while products aimed at men are called misogyny.
Then there’s Sweeney’s role in all of this. According to Novig CEO Jacob Fortinsky, Sweeney approached the company, owns equity in it and drove much of the campaign’s “visuals and messaging.”
In other words, an adult woman made a business decision to use her own image to promote a company in which she has a financial interest.
Armour responded by calling the ad misogynistic, effectively condemning Sweeney for exercising that agency in a way that appeals to men.
Apparently, women are free to make their own choices, provided Nancy Armour approves of them.
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Armour later claimed that Novig “backpedaled” on its “misogyny.” That’s not even true.
Fortinsky publicly defended the campaign, credited Sweeney with driving the concept and said the company was pleased with the response. Incredibly, Armour linked the word “backpedaled” to a story whose headline said the Novig CEO “defends” the ad.
Armour anticipated that someone might point out that female athletes have posed nude for magazines, including ESPN’s famous “Body Issue.” She insisted those examples are different because the athletes’ bodies were “the product of years of work and training” and should be appreciated for their accomplishments rather than “ogled over for sexual gratification.”
Huh.
So Armour has appointed herself the arbiter of which women have bodies worthy of being displayed and which women are merely objects. Female athletes who pose nude receive her approval because their nudity serves an Armour-approved purpose.
Sweeney voluntarily used her own sex appeal to promote a company she partly owns, and Armour branded her decision misogynistic because it was meant to appeal to men.
Careful, Nancy. Deciding which women’s bodies are worthy of being seen and which aren’t sounds awfully misogynistic.
Armour’s second example comes from a press conference after Texas’ comeback victory over Ohio State.
Manning was asked whether he had seen any fan-edited clips from the game. He said he had seen an AI edit of Sarkisian’s postgame interview, then volunteered the specific clip.
“Of him slapping Holly Rowe?” Manning said, laughing. “It’s hilarious.”
The AI video grew out of an awkward exchange after the game. Rowe attempted to interview Sarkisian moments after Texas completed a 20-point comeback and delivered one of the biggest victories of his career. Sarkisian shouted “Texas fight,” flashed the Hook ’em sign and left to celebrate with his team.
Rowe responded by throwing up her hands, rolling her eyes and walking off in a huff.
Texas later said technical problems with ESPN’s equipment contributed to the failed interview. Similar problems had disrupted an attempted interview at halftime, but in that instance, ESPN’s Laura Rutledge explained that Sarkisian had waited patiently and said the network owed him an apology.
So, what exactly did Manning do wrong? He laughed at a fake video making fun of this ridiculous scene.
No woman was assaulted and Manning clearly wasn’t laughing at actual violence. He reacted honestly to an obviously fake parody of an awkward postgame exchange.
Sports media members constantly complain that athletes are boring, guarded and coached to speak in clichés. Then an athlete offers one unfiltered reaction, and those same media members treat it as evidence of a deep moral failing.
This is exactly why athletes never say anything interesting.
Manning quickly learned the lesson. He issued the kind of carefully written, corporate apology that public figures release when honesty becomes more trouble than it’s worth. He apologized publicly, spoke privately with Rowe and received her forgiveness.
Rowe could have ended the entire controversy by saying no apology was necessary. Instead, she publicly accepted Manning’s apology and referenced their private conversation. That allowed her to occupy both of the most powerful positions in this particular media ecosystem: the victim who had been wronged and the gracious authority willing to offer forgiveness.
Victimhood is power in this world, and the more of it you can claim, the better.
Plus, accountability only flows in one direction when someone is permanently cast as the victim. Everyone else must apologize to Rowe. Rowe never has to apologize for her own behavior, which included an incredibly petty on-camera reaction.
But even after Rowe accepted Manning’s apology, that wasn’t enough for Armour.
She wrote that Manning’s apology “doesn’t matter” because “the damage was done.”
Then what, exactly, would matter?
Manning apologized publicly and privately. Armour still refused to let the incident end because resolution is useless to someone who needs permanent victims.
The misogyny boat must stay afloat.
To connect these three completely unrelated episodes, Armour turned to Purdue professor Cheryl Cooky.
“It’s about a reinscribing of those spaces and a reassertion of those sports as male-dominated and masculine-oriented institutions,” Cooky told Armour.
She added that when women gain power, society responds with a backlash.
Well, there you have it. Two people subscribe to Armour’s theory.
Unfortunately, neither provided any evidence that these three incidents were part of a backlash against women gaining power.
Did Manning laugh at a dumb AI video because he felt threatened by women gaining power? Did Sweeney create a sexually provocative gambling ad to punish female athletes for becoming more popular? Did whoever populated an architectural rendering with men do so as an act of resistance against the WNBA?
Armour doesn’t even attempt to prove any of that.
The study Armour cited, co-authored by Cooky, examined the amount and quality of coverage women’s sports received on selected television news and highlight programs during three sampling periods in 2024.
Whatever someone thinks of that research, it doesn’t establish the motives of Sweeney, Manning or the person who populated an architectural rendering.
Cooky’s contribution amounts to translating Armour’s argument into academic jargon. “Male-dominated and masculine-oriented institutions” sounds more authoritative than “men don’t want us here,” but it doesn’t make the claim true.
Armour didn’t find proof; she found a professor willing to repeat her conclusion so the same opinion could be presented as expertise.
The most revealing aspect of Armour’s misogyny hustle isn’t where she claims to find misogyny.
It’s the one place where she refuses to see it.
In 2023, then-ESPN host Sam Ponder argued that women deserve fair, sex-based athletic competition. Armour responded with an 800-word attack and accused Ponder of using “fairness” to cloak her “bigotry toward transgender girls and women.”
“What ESPN’s Sam Ponder calls ‘fairness’ is plain old bigotry,” Armour’s headline read.
Got that?
According to Armour, an architectural rendering, an advertisement starring Sydney Sweeney and an off-the-cuff remark by Arch Manning are major threats to women in sports. But a male athlete taking a roster spot, playing time, trophies or championships from girls and women isn’t a threat.
Worse than that, Armour attacks the women who object to those males.
Careful, Nancy. You’re starting to sound awfully misogynistic again.
Look at the women Armour chooses to attack: Sydney Sweeney, Sam Ponder and Riley Gaines. They are strong, successful women exercising their own agency, and Armour turns on them the moment they make choices she doesn’t like.
That’s Nancy Armour’s brand in a nutshell: men are responsible for everything wrong with women’s sports, except the men who “identify” as women. Those men must be defended, even if doing so requires tearing down women like Ponder and Gaines.
Armour can hold both positions because she isn’t applying a consistent principle about protecting women. She’s applying whatever progressive ideology demands at that particular moment.
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Sweeney voluntarily uses her own sex appeal to promote a company she partly owns? Complicit in misogyny.
Ponder voluntarily defends women’s athletic opportunities? Bigot.
Perfect.
The strangest part of Armour’s column is that she spends several paragraphs undermining her own argument.
She acknowledges that women’s sports have “never been more popular” and female athletes have “never had more visibility.” She notes that WNBA TV ratings, franchise values and salaries are soaring. She points to signature Nike lines for Caitlin Clark and A’ja Wilson, women coaching in the NFL and NBA, merchandise designed specifically for female fans, women’s sports bars and teams building their own stadiums.
That sounds like incredible progress.
Because it is.
Women have more opportunities, influence, visibility and economic power in sports than at any point in American history. The evidence no longer supports declaring that American sports refuse to treat women with “the slightest shred of decency.”
So, Armour takes three minor and unrelated examples, assigns all of them the same sweeping motive and tells readers that the “male sports monopoly” is lashing out against powerful women.
Essentially, the demand for misogyny now far exceeds the supply.
And that’s a major problem for people whose relevance depends on convincing women that they’re still surrounded by it.
Armour ended her column by declaring that there is room in sports for men and women.
Duh.
But Armour doesn’t appear interested in making room. She needs a permanent crisis with permanent victims and permanent villains.
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If misogyny in sports ever fades, so does the need for a professional misogyny detector.
So, when the supply runs low, Nancy Armour manufactures more.
