Kate Johnson

They can only make recommendations from what's on the shelves, which historically, for many decades and only until very recently, has been 19 stories about men's sports for every one story about women's sports.

19 to 1.

So if I ask any of these technology platforms who has scored the most goals for their country in international football, who do you think I get?

Most of you are debating, is it Cristiano Ronaldo?

Maybe Messi?

Well, as of recently, Cristiano Ronaldo has scored 141 goals for Portugal.

But factually speaking, this answer is wrong.

And spoiler alert, it's not Messi either.

The correct answer to this gender ambiguous query is Christine Sinclair of Canada with 190 goals.

That's right.

This isn't just a mistake.

It's a symptom of a bigger problem.

And it's one example of many.

These gender ambiguous queries come down to word matching issues within the algorithms.

When sports journalists, commentators, content creators consistently publish content that gender qualifies women's sports but not men's, we get an imperfect response.

For the person looking to settle the Messi versus Ronaldo debate, this answer works, and for the majority of people entering this query, this is what they're looking for.

But the factual omission of women in these answers and in our daily content feeds, well, it negatively impacts the athletes who have worked very hard for the distinction, but also the fans who are looking for this information.

This lack of visibility fuels what's often referred to as the vicious cycle of underinvestment.

The vicious cycle of underinvestment.

In 2023, for example, president of FIFA Gianni Infantino went on record criticizing many of the traditional broadcast networks for offering up to 100 times less for the women's rights, even as the 2023 World Cup tournament approached half that of the men's tournament.