She Plays ‘With a Bit of Anger!’: Natural Athleticism and Misogynoir Stereotypes Within Mediated (re)Constructions of Black and White Women Footballers in Soccer Matchday Commentary

This article is the first to examine how praise comments and narratives within women’s soccer matchday commentary differ for Black and White female footballers and the ways these mediated framings reproduce the misogynoir logics that shape Black and White women’s experiences within the sport. It draws on approximately 4,800 minutes of matchday-commentary gleaned from the 52 televised matches at the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup Finals (on the British Broadcasting Corporation), to conduct a systematic exploration of the variations in verbiage used by commentary-teams to praise and describe the on-field actions, performances, behaviours, talent, and physical appearances of women soccer players from different racialised backgrounds. Findings show: (1) clear differences in the ways in which visibly Black and White women soccer players were praised and discussed, which aligned with ‘natural athlete’ discourse. (2): That natural athlete framings became more pronounced when Black and White women played alongside each other. (3) The natural athlete frame when applied to women extended to include talk about perceived inherent emotional dispositions, that were demarcated by race. (4) The othering of Black women footballers, and football, also occurred via a consistent over-celebration of aspects of Black sports-womanhood and sporting culture as ‘exotic’.