The Gender of Audience Building: Televised Coverage of Women's and Men's NCAA Basketball*

In: Sociological inquiry: the quarterly journal of the International Sociology Honor Society, Volume 66, Issue 4, p. 422-440

Abstract

This article, based upon a comparative analysis of televised coverage of the "Final Four" of the women's and men's 1993 NCAA basketball tournaments, sheds light on some of the mechanisms through which an "audience preference" is socially constructed for men's sports over women's sports. First, we examine the temporal framing of the women's and men's tournaments by the sports/media complex. Next, we present a comparative description of the visual and verbal televised presentation of the women's and men's games. On the basis of these comparisons, we argue that the sports/media complex actively constructs audiences that are likely to see the men's Final Four as a dramatic, historic event that they simply "must" watch, while fans are likely to see the women's Final Four as a nonevent or, at best, as just another game. This, we argue, serves to situate viewers of men's sports at a nexus of power and pleasure, while simultaneously containing the potential challenge that female athleticism poses to hegemonic masculinity. Finally, we discuss, in light of socialist‐feminist theory, the potentially contradictory outcomes of recent hints of increased televised coverage of women's basketball.