The IWG Global Summit is considered the world's foremost gathering on gender equality in and through sport, often referred to as the "Davos of Women's Sport." From July 9 to 11, 2026, around 1,200 delegates from around the world gathered at the International Convention Centre in Birmingham: athletes, policymakers, researchers, sports federations, and business leaders. Under the theme "Beyond the Breakthrough", this year's Summit moved beyond celebrating individual progress to ask how such progress can be embedded for the long term across leadership, investment, innovation, participation, and visibility.
On stage: MediaAffairs Managing Director Maria Pernegger. In the Visibility track, she presented key findings from the study "Genderbalance in der Sportberichterstattung 2024/2025" under the title "Visibility is Key! Equality in Sport Will Remain a Pipe Dream if Female Athletes Remain Invisible in the Media."
"It was a special moment to bring Austrian data and years of research to an international stage, and to see how strongly athletes, federations, and media professionals from around the world recognized the same patterns in their own countries. Visibility is not a nice-to-have. It is the precondition for recognition, sponsorship, and the development of the next generation in women's sport. And as our study shows, this imbalance runs through nearly every media format."
Maria Pernegger, Managing Director, MediaAffairs
For the study, MediaAffairs analyzed around 40,000 pieces of content across print, TV, social media, and streaming platforms over a period of twelve months. Some of the key findings presented in Birmingham:
Only 15 percent of traditional print sports coverage in Austria focuses on female athletes. In linear TV broadcasts, the share of women's sport ranges from 37 percent on the public broadcaster ORF 1 down to just 5 percent on the commercial channel ServusTV. On non-linear platforms and media libraries, the average share is 15 percent. On social media, only 12 percent of sports posts by media outlets feature female athletes, even though these posts achieve, on average, higher engagement than posts about male athletes.
Just 3 percent of sports articles are written by female journalists, yet their coverage focuses on female athletes far more often (38 percent) than that of their male colleagues (13 percent). Trivializing language is also used about 2.4 times more often for female athletes than for male athletes, and when sexualization occurs in coverage, it affects female athletes 14 times more often.
A useful benchmark for tracking progress is the "Equal Play Day," marking the day of the year from which women's sport statistically disappears from Austrian media coverage. It moved from February 20 in 2025 to March 18 in 2026, a sign of progress, but still far from parity.
Those who want to explore the findings in more depth can find the full study as well as concise summaries below:
