Voices: Women’s voices in sports media aren’t just valuable, they’re necessary

I walk into the University of Utah’s football facility several times a week as a creative intern, and I can often count on one hand the number of full-time women I see on staff.

It shouldn’t surprise me anymore, but it still does: Utah’s sports industry continues to grow while women’s voices remain comparatively scarce.

Working with Utah football gave me my first real taste of what it means to be part of a program built on tradition, pride and high expectations. I came in eager to learn but unsure of where I fit in as a woman in such a competitive, male-dominated environment. I quickly discovered that my ideas and my voice had a place when my boss and colleagues made my ideas and work matter.

That realization pushed me to keep pursuing my passion for sports media.

From there, new doors opened. I connected with the NHL’s Utah Mammoth hockey team, where I learned how each sport carries its own culture and fan base. I also took on leadership roles beyond the field and ice, managing social media for two small athletic apparel brands. Those experiences taught me how to shape a message, engage an audience and represent a brand — skills that deepened my understanding of what it means to tell stories in sports.

In the creative department at Utah football, I work alongside male directors and female interns and have seen how varied perspectives lead to stronger, more authentic content. These varied perspectives don’t just influence how we tell stories; they determine which stories get told at all.

As a social media intern, I’m often the one connecting the athletes’ personalities to the fans who want to know them beyond the stat sheet. I’ve watched engagement rise every time we share behind-the-scenes moments or humanizing clips. That response has taught me that when a creative team reflects a range of experiences, we make content that feels more authentic, more inclusive and ultimately more impactful.

An Amplify Utah article by recent Utah graduate Ava Hart and published by Salt Lake Tribune earlier this year highlights Madeline Mirrione, who has worked with the Utah Jazz, Real Salt Lake and Utah Royals, all while being a full-time student at the University of Utah.

“Maddy is a go-getter,” Keagan Robb, Mirrione’s boss at RSL, told Hart. “This attitude has been a positive example and influence to the team’s overall productivity.”

Mirrione’s story shows the determination and resilience it takes for women to succeed in male-dominated sports spaces. Hard work alone isn’t enough; women are often expected to go above and beyond just to be viewed as equals — proving their knowledge of the game, their understanding of rosters and their abilities.

That pressure doesn’t come from a lack of talent, but from a lack of recognition. The industry asks women to constantly re-earn credibility that men are often granted automatically. Until women receive the same trust, support and opportunities from the start, the creative teams behind the camera will never fully reflect the game they work so hard to capture.

Women’s voices in sports media aren’t just valuable, they’re necessary. Real progress takes more than one woman pushing through; it requires teams and organizations actively creating space for women to lead, tell stories and be heard.

I know it’s possible because I’ve experienced it at Utah Football, where opportunity and trust have allowed me to grow. Establishing mentorship pipelines for early-career women, setting transparent hiring and promotion goals, and ensuring women have seats at the table where content strategy is shaped are all steps that can help close the gap.

The barriers still standing won’t fall on their own. They’ll only shift when the industry commits to sustained, structural change. When that happens, new opportunities will open, and young women entering the field will finally see a future built for them.

Jaydin Kroutil, a junior journalism major at the University of Utah, is a creative intern for Utah Football. She aspires to become a creative director for a sports team while inspiring the next generation of women in sports media, and she wrote this op-ed in collaboration with Amplify Utah.

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