This article discusses sexual and domestic violence.
To be a true sports fan means to be emotionally invested in adults playing kids games. It requires standing behind your team in success and failure, but most of all, it demands that you care. However, that same level of care isn’t reciprocated towards one group of fans: women.
It’s an old story by now. Headlines describing allegations of rape, assault, and sexual violence in connection to professional sports players has lost any shock value given their prevalence. For women watching, supporting leagues that treat such actions with the “any given Sunday” approach becomes a moral predicament. In the wake of something that changes a woman’s life forever, the careers of male players are largely unaffected.
This season in the National Football League (NFL), Deshaun Watson, a man with 27 allegations of sexual misconduct, was chosen by the Cleveland Browns to be their starting quarterback. In the National Hockey League (NHL), Alex Formenton became the third of five players accused in the Hockey Canada sexual assault trial to sign back into the league. Currently, National Basketball Association (NBA) forward Zion Williamson is facing a lawsuit alleging rape, strangulation, and battery. He has denied all allegations and has not been suspended despite awaiting trial.
While crimes targeted against women are handled with quiet ambiguity, this is not the case for other criminal offences. For example, rules on gambling are unequivocal and strictly enforced. The NHL and NBA handle cases individually, but betting on an NFL game carries a minimum one-year suspension which rises to two if the bet is placed on one’s own team. Recent lifetime bans were handed out to NFL staff member Ryan Gold and NBA player Jontay Porter, and NHL player Shane Pinto was suspended 41 games.
No NFL, NBA, or NHL player has ever received a lifetime ban for sexual or domestic assault.
For the one in three women worldwide who have experienced sexual or physical assault, there are few ways to ignore this disparity when engaging with sports. To watch major leagues claim that “protecting the integrity of the game… is number one, two, and three” on their priority list while simultaneously covering up violence against women to avoid scandal is symptomatic of the moral dilemma female fans face.
It’s impossible to tune into a Sunday of football without being reminded of abuse and assault cases perpetrated by faces you see on TV every week, alongside silence from your favourite players and professional leagues who discard women as inconvenient victims that inhibit their ability to maximize profit.
In the meantime, attention is focused elsewhere. Announcers discuss the quality of the plays instead of the quality of the player. The same news articles that announce current assault cases facing players choose to mention last season’s statistics, rather than explain what the player might have done.
Importantly, sport is not immune to being political. Specialty nights dedicated to the Armed Forces are annually held across the NHL, NBA, and NFL. In 2025, all but six NFL teams observed a moment of silence for Charlie Kirk’s death. Conversations of “this is bigger than sports” are commonplace, so it begs the question: are the lives of women not more important too?
The cultural atmosphere of sports is not gender exclusive, and it’s not easy for female fans raised in it to step away. The experience of sports fanaticism connects cities, families, and strangers alike. However, current league policies do not treat women with humanity. Their autonomy is minimized every time a perpetrator is allowed to step back onto the playing field.
With leagues telling women exactly how little their safety is valued, it’s no wonder that some are making the difficult step back from supporting teams they love that don’t love them back.
Jaimeson is a fourth-year Sociology student and one of The Journal’s Copy Editors.
Tags
Sexual Assault, Sports Culture
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