The rumor has it that Spin thought long and hard about covering the women's side. Why they ultimately decided to, I don't know. Perhaps the dedicated posters saying they were gonna support the women's game made them take them risk and, "do the right thing." Now, they're left holding the bag because the posters who wrote, "we all need to support the women's game," didn't.
I couldn't have said it better myself.
To add to this - I think there's a huge disconnect right now on what "equality" means in sports. In a meritocracy, equality means getting your due based on your merit, or value. There's a loud segment of fans that believe equality means giving the same treatment to two products which hold different market values...and that the cost of providing that same treatment is irrelevant and should be absorbed by vague "sponsors" and "manufacturers" (and the onus to find those sponsors and manufacturers is placed squarely on the media).
On top of that, there's social pressure and fear of being labeled a "sexist" if you don't agree with the latter definition of equality, which in the real world is not equality, but is actually patronizing.
Equality doesn't mean pretending the FPO field is as star-studded, or as competitive, or as popular as MPO. By that logic, any time I say in commentary that "this guy doesn't quite have the power of a Lizotte or McMahon" I would be "bullying" another player because I'm not pretending that everybody is on equal footing. Or same applies when talking about "Ricky range" on putts - it's not belittling others to say that.
Equality means not giving major special treatment to EITHER sex, simply because of their gender. Right now, we are giving preferential treatment to a division comprised of 850-970 rated players because they are females. I've never covered an Intermediate or Advanced division for SpinTV, and I'm not about to start, even though that would be equal based on merit (the ratings average you earn based on playing the same course, which does not take gender into account).
Finally, before somebody completely misreads this, I'm not AT ALL against media coverage for FPO. What I'm feeling is:
1) annoyed by the "equality" argument in disc golf because it's actually being misused, which undermines the real gender-equality struggles in the US in 2017.
2) frustrated by certain FPO players who are creating social media pitchfork mobs instead of reaching out to media producers directly and asking for help in promoting the FPO game. The only player who has ever reached out to me in my 5 years at SpinTV is Zoe Andyke. All of these other "injustices" and "wrongs" that the media supposedly is guilty of enacting upon FPO players? I learn about them when their fans send us vulgar messages. They've made us a public enemy and tried to take hostage everything we're building, without so much as asking beforehand if we can collaborate and do good.
3) conflicted, because I want to be part of the disc golf "generation" that encourages and sees more women play, but I'm at the same time tasked with protecting the US side of SpinTV's business, and FPO Tournament Coverage is a high risk bet right now that I rarely have the budget for. I don't think expanding Tournament Coverage grows the women's game. I think specifically targeted lifestyle and instructional videos do far more good, yet some of the FPO players are advocating that they personally get spotlight for their play, instead of starting a conversation about what types of content will actually grow their fanbase with new members.