Women are making inroads into officiating men’s sports
In baseball, fans don’t usually cheer the umpires.
The umpires are the officials, like the referees. And compared with other major sports officials, baseball umpires come in for some pretty heavy criticism. In baseball, it’s generally permitted for players and coaches to run onto the field and argue about calls. Coaches are often animated in their arguments: they argue to motivate their players and the fans. In some famous examples from history, coaches kick dirt all over the umpires’ shoes, as fans egg them on. When things get out of hand, umpires can eject a player or coach from the game.
In the stadium, fans are not shy about making their opinions known. There isn’t a lot of polite appreciation for the work of a baseball umpire. Whenever the spotlight is on them, it’s usually not for a good reason.
So it was unusual when the home crowd in Atlanta gave an umpire a standing ovation before the game. Unusual, but maybe not surprising. For the umpire’s name was Jen Pawol. And she became the first female umpire in Major League Baseball’s 150-year history.
Baseball has had female broadcasters, female data analysts, even a female general manager. But it has never had a female official on the field—until now. And that’s surprising. Baseball is played every day, and there are over 75 full-time umpires at any given time.
Pawol’s promotion was a quirk of the schedule. The Atlanta Braves played a doubleheader against the Miami Marlins that day: that means they played two games in the same day. And whenever there’s a doubleheader, they borrow an additional umpire from a lower league to help out in the second game.
Back in 2023, Pawol became just the second female umpire in AAA—that’s the league just below the top league. So when the major leagues needed an extra umpire to work that doubleheader in Atlanta, they called an umpire from the lower, AAA league. And it was Pawol who got the call. She would be in the big league for just a short time, but she would make history.
After the game, she had a small celebration with champagne in paper Gatorade cups for family and close friends. And soon, she went back to her old job in AAA, calling games in smaller cities like Toledo, St. Paul, Indianapolis, and Des Moines, far from the national media spotlight.
Her debut got me thinking: in what other men’s sports have there been female officials? I know, as a fan, that the NBA and NFL, America’s basketball and football leagues, have had female officials for a long time. But I wasn’t sure about other sports or about other countries. Here’s what I found.
Let’s do basketball first. In 1997, Violet Palmer and Dee Kantner became the first female referees in America’s National Basketball Association. The NBA today has 65 men and eight women as full-time referees. The NBA’s “G-League” is a lower league for developing players. There, 48 percent of referees are female. And around the world, female basketball referees are common in the men’s game. Germany’s Anne Panther has officiated top EuroLeague games. Basketball is popular in Turkey, also. Funda Teoman is a prominent female official there.
Now for soccer. The 2022 World Cup was a milestone year. For the first time ever, women were included among the referees in the men’s World Cup. In fact, the Costa Rica versus Germany game featured three female referees—the first time a complete crew of female officials worked a men’s World Cup game.
Top country leagues have been opening up, too. Germany, France, Italy, England, and Brazil have all had female officials call men’s league games.
It’s perhaps not surprising that soccer and basketball have female referees, because both those sports have strong professional women’s leagues, so there’s likely a pool of players who develop an interest in becoming an official.
So what about sports where there aren’t strong women’s leagues?
America’s National Football League welcomed its first female official in 2015, Sarah Thomas. She even worked the Super Bowl, the country’s biggest sporting event, in 2021. But there haven’t been many women on NFL officiating crews. At any given time, there are just one or two female officials on a roster of about 120.
The National Hockey League is a professional ice hockey league in Canada and the United States. The NHL has never had a female official. There are female officials in the league just below the top league, however.
Cricket and rugby are traditionally male-dominated sports. There have been just a handful of female officials at the top levels of the men’s games in those sports. Japanese baseball has had a woman play in the men’s league—but never umpire in one. In tennis, it’s very common for female chair umpires to work men’s matches, even at the highest level.
Female officials can face unique hurdles on their way up. They are subject to more scrutiny than usual. Every close call—or incorrect call—might be over-analyzed by fans and the media. Internet trolls are ruthless. Many female officials say they face discrimination.
Then there are the logistics. Most stadiums don’t have spacious accommodations for the officials to begin with. Separate men’s and women’s facilities is a lot to ask. Natalie Aspinall, the first woman to serve as a referee in the English Premier League, would show up with her uniform already on, underneath a track suit. Over the years, stadiums have gotten more accommodating to mixed-gender officiating teams.
Jeff’s take
Considering all the barriers female officials have faced entering men’s sports, I got to wondering: are male officials likewise rare in women’s sports? The answer is no. No, they are not. In fact, male referees have long been common in women’s leagues and competitions – mostly without controversy.
For example, the WNBA (women’s pro basketball) uses a mixture of male and female referees, but historically the majority have been men. The same is true in women’s soccer: many top women’s matches, especially at the club level, are officiated by male referees.
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