{"id":43014,"date":"2025-07-28T14:22:40","date_gmt":"2025-07-28T18:22:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/?post_type=bu-article&#038;p=43014"},"modified":"2025-07-28T23:53:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-29T03:53:08","slug":"covering-the-womens-sports-beat","status":"publish","type":"bu-article","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/articles\/covering-the-womens-sports-beat\/","title":{"rendered":"Covering the Women\u2019s Sports Beat"},"content":{"rendered":"\t<div class=\"wp-block-editorial-leadin bu-blocks-block-editorial-leadin is-style-side-by-side has-media has-wider has-box has-media-focus-center-middle\">\n\t\t<div class=\"container-lockup\">\n\n\t\t\t<div class=\"wp-block-leadin-media\">\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t<img width=\"800\" height=\"1422\" src=\"\/com\/files\/2025\/07\/comtalk-marisa-ingemi-banner.jpg\" class=\"\" alt=\"Marisa Ingemi standing on a basketball court.\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/files\/2025\/07\/comtalk-marisa-ingemi-banner.jpg 800w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/files\/2025\/07\/comtalk-marisa-ingemi-banner-358x636.jpg 358w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/files\/2025\/07\/comtalk-marisa-ingemi-banner-576x1024.jpg 576w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/files\/2025\/07\/comtalk-marisa-ingemi-banner-768x1365.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/files\/2025\/07\/comtalk-marisa-ingemi-banner-563x1000.jpg 563w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/files\/2025\/07\/comtalk-marisa-ingemi-banner-360x640.jpg 360w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"container-words-outer\">\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"container-words-inner\">\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<h1 class=\"head\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCovering the Women&#8217;s Sports Beat\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/h1>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<h4 class=\"deck\">The San Francisco Chronicle\u2019s Marisa Ingemi has become a leading voice in women\u2019s sports media<\/h4>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\n\t<\/div>\n\n\t<div class=\"wp-prepress-component-metabar\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"wp-prepress-component-metabar-categories\">\n\t\t\t<ul>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<li>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<a\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\thref=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/category\/alumni\/\"\n\t\t\t\t\t\t>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAlumni\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/li>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<li>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<a\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\thref=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/category\/journalism\/\"\n\t\t\t\t\t\t>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJournalism\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/li>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/ul>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\n\t<div class=\"wp-prepress-component-metabar-wrapper\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"wp-prepress-component-metabar-date\">July 28, 2025<\/div>\n\t\t\n\t\t<div class=\"wp-prepress-component-metabar-credits\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<ul data-credit-type=\"By\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<li>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/authors\/marc-chalufour\/\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMarc Chalufour\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/li>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/ul>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<div class=\"wp-prepress-component-metabar-share js-bu-prepress-share-tools\">\n\t\t\t<span class=\"icon-twitter\"><span>Twitter<\/span><\/span>\n\t\t\t<span class=\"icon-facebook\"><span>Facebook<\/span><\/span>\n\t\t\t<span class=\"icon-action\"><\/span>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n\n\t<div style=\"display:none;\">\n\t\t<div class=\"wp-prepress-component-share-tools\">\n\t<div class=\"wp-prepress-component-share-tools-inner js-prepress-component-share-tools\">\n\t\t<h4>Share<\/h4>\n\t\t<p class=\"wp-prepress-component-share-tools-article-title\">Covering the Women\u2019s Sports Beat<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"wp-prepress-component-share-tools-article-link\">\n\t\t\t<div>\n\t\t\t\t<input type=\"text\" value=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/articles\/covering-the-womens-sports-beat\/\" readonly>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<label>\n\t\t\t\t<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Copy URL:<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t<button class=\"js-prepress-component-share-tools\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<span>Copy<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t<\/button>\n\t\t\t<\/label>\n\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\t\n\n\n<p class=\"has-drop-cap\">Marisa Ingemi has covered the NHL\u2019s Boston Bruins and the WNBA\u2019s Golden State Valkyries. But <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sfchronicle.com\/sports\/article\/bay-area-derby-home-queer-trans-skaters-fights-18260668.php\">her favorite story<\/a> unfolded far away from the bright lights of any sold-out arena, in a leaky warehouse where a nonprofit roller derby league was struggling to survive.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThis rundown West Oakland building is the physical and spiritual home of Bay Area Derby, aka BAD,\u201d Ingemi (\u201917) wrote in August 2023. \u201cAlmost everyone among BAD\u2019s three teams and 20-plus skaters is queer. Many are trans, an identity now being pushed out of traditional sports by legislation across the country.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI love to find a niche. I\u2019m always looking for stories within the margins that other reporters aren\u2019t thinking of,\u201d she says. Though Ingemi\u2019s first big break came covering men\u2019s professional ice hockey, the niches she most enjoys covering\u2014and for which she\u2019s built her reputation\u2014involve women\u2019s sports and queer athletes. Her roller derby story received a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nlgja.org\/blog\/2024\/07\/2024eij\/\">2024 Excellence in Sports Writing award<\/a> from the Association of LGBTQ+ Journalists and Ingemi was a finalist for the inaugural <a href=\"https:\/\/apsportseditors.com\/apse-announces-inaugural-winner-of-billie-jean-king-award\/\">Billie Jean King Award for Excellence in Women\u2019s Sports Coverage<\/a>, which is presented by the Associated Press Sports Editors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cSometimes people get into sports journalism because they love sports, then they fall in love with the journalism. That\u2019s definitely what happened with me,\u201d Ingemi says. \u201cSports journalism intersects with every topic. You\u2019re kind of covering everything and I really love that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Women\u2019s sports are exploding in popularity. Professional basketball, hockey and soccer leagues have all expanded in the past two years. Two billion people watched the 2023 FIFA Women\u2019s World Cup. And the 2024 NCAA Women\u2019s Basketball championship game\u2014in which the University of South Carolina defeated the University of Iowa and their superstar Caitlin Clark\u2014drew more viewers than the men\u2019s final the next day.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The sports media industry, historically male-dominated, is slowly catching up. According to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.teamwass.com\/news\/wassermans-the-collective-from-the-shadows-to-the-spotlight\/\">a report published by the Wasserman talent agency and ESPN Research<\/a>, women\u2019s sports accounted for just 16 percent of the sports media coverage in 2022\u2014but that still represented a 300 percent increase since 2019.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At the <em>San Francisco Chronicle<\/em>, where Ingemi has worked since 2022, she landed in a newsroom that is investing in women\u2019s sports coverage. They\u2019ve given her the freedom to cover stories like the Bay Area Derby and she\u2019s one of only four beat writers across the 13-team WNBA who travels to away games.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Golden State Valkyries played their first game in May 2025, but rumors of the league\u2019s possible expansion to the Bay Area had been circulating for years. \u201cI love seeing people who have wanted a WNBA team for 20 years,\u201d Ingemi says. \u201cWe\u2019re in this moment where we\u2019re seeing other groups of people being acknowledged\u2014like, you matter.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Writing for this audience, Ingemi says, motivates her to bring something new to the sports section. \u201cThere\u2019s an opportunity to change things. We don\u2019t have to always do things the way men\u2019s sports have historically [been covered]. There are going to be fans of the Valkyries that have never opened a sports section before.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That means explaining the league and the game for new fans in a way that writers on the men\u2019s beat may not. It also means looking beyond the court. \u201cThe people drawn to women\u2019s basketball want more people-oriented stuff, social issue stuff,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-style-yellow-background-right\"><p>Sports journalism intersects with every topic. You\u2019re kind of covering everything and I really love that.<\/p><cite>Marisa Ingemi<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>Over the past year, some of those social issues have also exploded into political controversy. \u201cSports <em>are<\/em> political,\u201d Ingemi says. \u201cAnd women\u2019s sports especially are political because there\u2019s a lot of people who don\u2019t even want women to do them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>No sports topic has been more politicized over the past year than the participation of transgender women. In 2024, then-presidential-candidate Donald Trump promised to ban transgender women from women\u2019s sports and targeted the San Jose State University volleyball team, for whom a transgender woman was competing. The story grew as several schools forfeited games rather than play against the Spartans and a member of the team joined a lawsuit seeking to overturn the NCAA rule allowing transgender women to compete. (The NCAA updated its policy in February 2025, limiting participation in women\u2019s sports to athletes assigned female at birth.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>From October 2024 into early 2025, Ingemi reported almost exclusively on the San Jose State story. She wrote more than 20 stories about the team and the growing controversy, even <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sfchronicle.com\/sports\/college\/article\/trump-officials-renew-false-claims-sjsu-trans-20151691.php\">fact-checking President Trump<\/a> after he falsely claimed that the player could spike the ball dangerously fast and had injured an opponent. That coverage earned Ingemi 2024 National Sports Media Association <a href=\"https:\/\/nationalsportsmedia.org\/awards\/state-awards\/california\">cosportswriter of the year honors for California<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ingemi has had mixed feelings about blending her love of sports with her profession. At one point, she realized she could no longer watch baseball and football for fun. But focusing on women\u2019s sports has reinvigorated the passion that drew her to sports journalism in the first place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"is-style-end-of-article\">\u201cIt\u2019s just so different seeing something grow like this,\u201d she says. \u201cThis must\u2019ve been what it was like watching baseball in 1915. We\u2019re seeing something come into itself. And we\u2019re seeing something that people love and that they\u2019re getting access to for the first time. That\u2019s made me really love what sports can do for people.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Marisa Ingemi has covered the NHL\u2019s Boston Bruins and the WNBA\u2019s Golden State Valkyries. But her favorite story unfolded far&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1654,"featured_media":43043,"template":"","meta":{"bu_prepress_billboard":"","_bu_prepress_primary_term":"","_bu_prepress_primary_term_manual":""},"categories":[962,3],"tags":[338],"bu-publication":[],"discipline-type":[],"bu_edition":[],"media_type":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/43014"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/bu-article"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1654"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/43014\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43017,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/43014\/revisions\/43017"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43014"},{"taxonomy":"bu-publication","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-publication?post=43014"},{"taxonomy":"discipline-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/discipline-type?post=43014"},{"taxonomy":"bu_edition","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu_edition?post=43014"},{"taxonomy":"media_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media_type?post=43014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}