It was only 25 years ago that CBS television hired Phyllis George, the winner of the 1971 Miss America pageant, to work its weekend football telecasts. That seemingly transparent publicity stunt quickly spawned its imitators, with the result that in the 21st century no American sports broadcast worth its salt would consider going on the air without a female presence.
Most of today's football television women regard themselves as journalists, although some of them, in the words of the sagacious ex-coach Bill Parcells, "don't know whether the ball is pumped or stuffed".
In any case, it is worth noting that in this football season alone:
(a) ABC sacked Lesley Visser, a 46-yearold former newspaper journalist, as its Monday Night Football sideline reporter and replaced her with a 26-year-old blonde named Melissa Stark.
(b) FOX added Los Angeles weather girl Jillian Barberie to the dramatis personae of its Sunday pre-game show.
(c) At a college football game in Florida, CBS's Jill Arrington worked the sideline wearing a black top so skimpy it would have embarrassed a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader.
(d) Meredith Viera, the co-host of a (non-sports) ABC programme The View, showed up at baseball's World Series and, batting her eyes seductively, asked New York Mets' catcher Mike Piazza which of his team-mates had "the biggest wood".
All of which made it somewhat ludicrous when Playboy's proposal to conduct an Internet poll of its readers to select "America's Sexiest Sportscaster" was greeted with howls of protest from the neo-feminist lobby.
Noting that Playboy had juiced up the stakes with the revelation it would offer the winner $1 million to pose for a nude photo spread in the magazine, the Boston Globe labelled the whole affair "a step backward for female journalists still trying to establish their credibility". There were the usual complaints about the "objectification" of women. After labelling the Playboy contest "stupid, sexist, and unfair", Sports Illustrated columnist Rick Reilly offered a list of 10 male sportscasters to be considered as an alternative.
Fox broadcaster Keith Olbermann, who asked his listeners to boycott the poll, also urged the nominees to disavow the process. "I cannot fathom how any of these sportscasters think they can truly help themselves or others of their gender by participating," moaned Olbermann.
The reaction of Arrington, the frontrunner, mirrored that of most of her colleagues. "Of course I won't pose," said Arrington, "I consider myself a serious journalist."
But, significantly, she did not ask to have her name removed from the ballot. Neither did her fellow contestants. In fact, even in the midst of all the agonised hand-wringing over this "demeaning" process, several of the competitors were actually jockeying for position.
According to Playboy sports editor Blair Fischer, the agents for NBC's Summer Sanders offered to send "vacation pictures" of their client. CBS reporter Bonnie Bernstein didn't like the picture Playboy was using and sent a better one. Playboy reported Stark's agents also asked to upgrade her photo by submitting a replacement for online viewing.
"I never asked to be a part of this," protested Bernstein in defending her position to New York Daily News columnist Lisa Olson. "I figured I'd let the survey take the course and I'd continue to do my job the way I've always done. I've been caught off guard because I've never been lumped in a category as a beauty queen posing as a sports reporter."
At the same time, Bernstein admitted she was keeping tabs on the vote. "It's certainly flattering if anybody finds me attractive," she said.
"I know my sports. I know my stuff," CNN's Inga Hammond shrugged when asked about having her name on the ballot. "So I don't worry about the credibility issue." NBC's Hannah Storm, a married mother of two, said she found the whole thing "positively hysterical".
While many of her print journalist colleagues reacted with predictably outraged bluster, Olson, a victim of a landmark sexual harassment case a decade ago when several naked New England Patriots intimidated her in the team locker-room, had a relatively balanced view of the proceedings.
"It's easy to cast aspersions on powerful men who hire their Barbie doll fantasies," she wrote, "or to vilify a men's magazine whose job description is to titillate. But the women aren't all innocent babes here." Indeed.
"If you're a young woman thinking about TV journalism," an unidentified woman who recently left television sports told Olson, "you'd better get a nose job, breast enhancement and whatever else you can do for your appearance, because that is what counts the most these days."
The polls closed last Friday. Playboy reported 221,760 votes were cast, more than quadrupling the previous record set by last year's Survivor poll.
"In a comeback that rivalled the nailbiting heroics of a John Elway two-minute drill, CBS sideline reporter Jill Arrington surged ahead of her Monday Night Football counterpart Melissa Starks to capture Playboy.com's Sexiest Sportscaster award," trumpeted the magazine's website.
Arrington's 57,643 votes edged out Stark, who tallied 51,574. Storm was third, followed by Bernstein. Barberie, the FOX weather girl, was fifth.
"There's absolutely nothing I can do about the way I look," said Arrington, who said she would forgo the million-dollar offer to pose au naturel. On the other hand, she did not renounce her new title.
