Women’s Golf – getting more viewership via sexism

I stumbled upon this article and video this morning on Yahoo about Anna Rawson.
I don’t follow golf, but this article interested me because it’s basically about how Anna Rawson wants to up the viewership of women’s golf because she is concerned that the media doesn’t give women’s golf the same kind of coverage that they do to men’s golf. This is a valid point, and something worth addressing and exploring. However…it appears that most of Anna’s ideas for bringing in new viewership are quite sexist. Anna is not new to sexist advertising as she was declared Maxim’s “sexiest athlete”, and she is also a spokesperson for GoDaddy (a company notorious for their constant overtly sexist advertising). So it would appear that Anna has no concerns about being objectified.
The video implies that Anna wants to make women’s golf “sexier” as a way to bring more people to the sport. In the video, an interviewer asks Anna “Are you selling professional golf or a sexual stereotype?”. Anna’s response to this question is simply “It’s just more about getting eyeballs”. Which doesn’t actually answer the question in any way.
It would seem that Anna’s attempts to bring in more viewership may be doing more harm than good. A few years ago, Anna was being interviewed by an Australian radio host about the lack of media coverage of the women’s game and made the following statement: “…the mentality unfortunately has not changed among the media and the industry. They still think we’re 25 years ago where the tour was full of a lot of dykes and unattractive females. No one wanted to watch and it’s totally changed”.
So basically what Anna is saying is that golf is not something anyone would want to watch unless it’s filled with attractive, heterosexual females. Yeah, that’s not sexist at all. Kristie Kerr, a fellow golfer made the following comment about Anna’s interview: “She tried to address it in her own way but didn’t think before she spoke so she almost put us back another 20 years with that comment”.
I completely understand the frustration of women’s sports not getting appropriate viewership, however I don’t think that Anna’s ideas are the answer that the sport needs. Granted, she has some non-sexist ideas as well such as running the womenss tournaments at the same time as the mens as a means of more media exposure. However I find Anna’s mentality to be very disturbing: If we are low on viewers, then we must show more skin and make the sport “sexier”. It almost seems as if the actual skill of the game is not even remotely important….it only matters if there is enough eye candy available for the viewers.