Often within sports media the most dominant and talked about stories are from the major sports in the world. These sports include football, basketball, baseball, hockey, soccer, MMA, and many others. The one thing in common with all the sports I listed is that they have primary professional leagues with media coverage. I bring this point up to ask where the sports coverage is for disabled athletes. There are many professional leagues for para athletes including wheelchair basketball, wheelchair rugby, wheelchair tennis, para triathlon, and many others.
These sports are within the Paralympics games, throughout the world there are many top athletes within these sports that don’t get highlighted by the media enough. To put it bluntly the main reason why media coverage of para athletes is so small is largely from money. To be more specific there is not a market where media companies see a profit worth their time and investment. This lack of a market and audience for these competitions is something that can be created if people knew where to look for games to see.
Most people aren’t aware of the many para-athletic competitions that happen within America. Recently I covered a wheelchair basketball invitational tournament at Ability360 in Phoenix, Arizona, and I was taken aback seeing everyone play within the tournament. The speed and intensity of the game really stood out to me watching. The players ability to move so precisely and forcefully on their wheelchairs really presented the game as a physical game similar to regular basketball. The physical demands the players went through playing in the tournament was nothing short of amazing to witness. Since covering that tournament I have changed how I viewed athletes and athletics as a whole.
During the tournament I met and interviewed a variety of different people who competed, there were paralympic athletes like Brian Bell. I also met ordinary people who competed in the tournament like Luis Raygoza. I learned from both of them how strong and committed they had to be in order to play wheelchair basketball competitively. They grew from their past injuries and learned how to compete within para-athletic competitions. Both of them mentioned the importance of having a place to work out and train in order to compete in para-athletics.
Ability360 is a top para athletic facility within the state of Arizona, they host many different kinds of competitions that you can go see throughout the year. They host many state-of-the-art facilities that are designed for para-athletes. One of the issues that both Luis and Brian felt was crucial to the growth of para-athletics in the future is the need for more facilities designed and made for para-athletes around the US.
I urge my fellow young sports journalists to give para athletics a chance and go see a game sometime and speak with the players and share their stories. People always look for people they can root for, especially in sports. In order for people to discover many of the amazing para-athletes in the world it is up to us the media to give them a platform to be seen. We need to give them a bigger voice within our society and show their perseverance from their injuries to competing professionally.
