One thing that we’re not never going to stop doing, posting, or talking about is women and girls in sports. Specifically, engaging them into the industry. The Sport Information Resource Centre in Canada. created an infographic on the status of girls and women’s participation and leaderships in sports. And while this talks website is based in Canada, it is extremely comparable to the United States.
The first thing on the infographic is how important a healthy lifestyle is. Remaining active has so many benefits across our lifespan, yet women and girls are less active. Therefore, this leads them missing out on these benefits. This then jumps into their main point: Why does this matter?
So, why does this matter? According to the infographic, girls who participate in sports are more likely to be success in their careers, in academics, as well as become leaders in their community.
We don’t need this to know that female participation in sports is not as high as male participation. Or that women in leadership is also a significate lower number versus male coaches and leaders. It’s also no secret that all of these numbers aren’t a lot, but we also might not be aware of how this impacts the lifespan.
Data visualization is great for getting your point across in little words. Images stick out easier in one’s mind, and people are more likely to react to an image versus a long article. Images also can attract different demographics. In comparison to older versus younger, some might have a hard time reading and others might not know what they are reading about.
Pictures make it easy to follow. In this infographic, they strategically use chart comparisons to discuss girls’ participation in sports if they see female leadership. Physically seeing these numbers on a chart versus reading the stats gives readers that component where they put these into perspective. That is why this is strategic communication.
It’s easy to put everything on a page and expect people to read it all. But that isn’t how it works. I would be lying if I said I have read every single word in articles, posts, or anything with data thoroughly. People skip over things all the time. With visual data, it’s harder to skip over those stats and the numbers versus words ratio doesn’t become overpowering .
In terms of this infographic, it does just that. It uses bright colors to gain attention, images that relate to the message that also get their point across, charts to condense data while still being organized, and even relating it back to the big picture: how does this impact one’s life.
Women and sports is something that is not only personal to me, but to tons of other people. Female leadership has increased in the industry, but it’s nowhere near where it could be, it’s still on the upward projectory and increasing everyday. We have to hope that infographics like these can inspire women and girls to get involved.
To learn more about SIRC, click here.
