Gender in March Madness

March madness is a time of the year when basketball fans frantically converse about the “tournament” and how they are doing on their brackets. People entirely forget the fact that there are actually two tournaments going on at the same time. What about the hard-working women who are aiming for the same goal as the men in the NCAA tournament? Television sportscasts, newspapers, and radio sports reports do not help the situation, either. Whenever the media treats women as second-class citizens, how are the fans supposed to become interested in their tournament? Throughout my research, I have found that gender affects NCAA basketball and it’s coverage in several ways, especially in the difference in the amount of media coverage, the fan’s importance of each gender, and the attention diverted to NCAA brackets.

After watching television, browsing on-line, reading newspapers, and listening to sports radio, I have discovered that men get a lot more media coverage than the women. If you turn on a television sports report, you will find the reporters constantly talking about the men’s teams in the tournament. For example, one night I turned on Sportscenter to find out how Tennessee’s Candace Parker performed. All I could find out was each of the reports finalized predictions and how surprisingly far Davidson has gotten in the tournament. While browsing on-line, any webpage I went to seemed to only highlight articles about the men’s tournament. I had to search around a lot harder to find articles about the women. However, I was able to find information on the women’s tournament by actually going to Google and searching “Women’s NCAA tournament.” In the newspaper, you will see a full page worth of the men’s tournament information. Yes, there may be a few articles regarding the women’s tournament, but the writers still do not give them very much attention. As John Sweeney, director of the sports communication program at the University of North Carolina states, “There are still some editors and writers who do not give women the time and attention they are due” (Brennan, 2008, abstract). Radio sports reports are not any more helpful. You could turn on the radio to find reporters such as Don Imus calling the Rutgers women’s team “nappy headed hoes.” Since men get the majority of media coverage, it is hard to get people to become interested in the women’s NCAA tournament.

In my opinion, basketball fans seem to portray the importance of each gender differently. For example, the NCAA tournaments are known as either, “the tournament”, or the “women’s tournament.” What is so hard about adding the word “men’s” to articles, sportscasts, etc, to make it fair? Obviously, the men’s tournament is a lot more established and more popular, but there are dedicated female athletes now. These female athletes are role models for young girls around the world who have taken in interest in basketball. It is not fair to them to be so young and experience the gender bias that goes on in the sports environment. As an example of the “men’s tournament” vs. “women’s tournament”, you can turn on any sports channel to find the bottom of the screen broadcasting the scores of games. For the men’s tournament