The Male-Dominated Sports Media Space:

Social media has been proven to be an extremely powerful tool because of its ability to
promote sports quickly and cheaply to its respective fans. Although this is true, many scholars
looking at the sports media space have found problems within it (Adá-Lameiras & Rodríguez-
Castro 2023; Bernstein 2002; Billings & Young 2015; Coche & Tuggle 2023; Cooky et al. 2015;
Hull 2016; Litchfield & Osborne 2018; Sainz-de-Baranda et al. 2020; Salido-Fernandez &
Muñoz-Muñoz 2023). One of the issues that was most largely agreed upon was how sports media
is a space that is dominated by men. Scholars looked more into the lack of coverage of women’s
sports and they did this across many different types of media such a newspapers (Litchfield &
Osborne 2018), television (Billings & Young 2015; Cooky et al. 2015; Coche & Tuggle 2023),
social media like Twitter (Adá-Lameiras & Rodríguez-Castro 2023; Hull 2016; Sainz-de-
Baranda 2020), and a combination of those previously stated (Bernstein 2002; Salido-Fernandez
& Muñoz-Muñoz). It is important to look at the different areas where male-dominance was seen.
Sainz-de-Baranda et al. explains that “It has likewise confirmed that the coverage given is biased
in maximizing the presence of “gender appropriate” sports” (p.10). This was not an uncommon
theme; this similar idea was found in other research papers (Bernstein 2002; Coche & Tuggle
2023). In contrast Sainz-de-Baranda found that soccer was making some improvements towards
equal coverage, but credited this to the level of popularity that the sport has within Spain (p. 8).
Many scholars have also noticed that the amount of coverage fluctuated, especially when the
Olympics rolled around (Adá-Lameiras & Rodríguez-Castro 2023; Billings & Young 2015;
Coche & Tuggle 2023; Litchfield & Osborne 2018). The Olympics proved that they were a time
where women got significantly more coverage as compared to routine periods (Billings & Young
2015; Litchfield & Osborne 2018) and they were talked about in a more positive light (Adá-
Lameiras & Rodríguez-Castro 2023). These kinds of claims of positive gains from women’s
sports in the media came with a variety of downsides. Litchfield & Osborne (2018) noted
“Although there are increases in print media coverage during the Olympic Games for women,
these increases are still a long way behind the coverage that men (and in some cases, animal
sports) are afforded,” (p. 52). On the contrary Salido-Fernandez & Muñoz-Muñoz found that “It
is confirmed that the dailies Marca.com and MundoDeportivo.com represented female basketball
players unequally as compared to their male counterparts in the coverage of the 2016 Olympic
Games,” (p.1735) demonstrating that perhaps things don’t really change during the Olympics.
When it comes to the coverage being male-dominated, many scholars found that another likely
issue was the lack of female reporters and female sources within the media (Coche & Tuggle
2023; Hull 2016; Salido-Fernandez & Muñoz-Muñoz 2023). Finding that not only is there a
small percentage of female writers (Cooky et al. 2015; Salido-Fernandez & Muñoz-Muñoz
2023), but that they are also less likely to write about women’s sports (Hull 2016). Additionally,
noting a lack of female coaches within the industry (Cooky et al. 2015). Through all these papers
the underlying notion is that the media continues to “focus on men’s sport and seemingly ignore
women’s athletics,” (Hull, 2016 p.487). Most of this research has been used to simply prove the
underrepresentation of women within various types of media. With this current research paper, I
want to combine this coverage with the portrayal/framing of these athletes to see how the
public/media shows us what they think about the professional basketball industry, since the fans
can tell us a lot about the current state of the basketball industry. Additionally, I intend to fill a
gap within the research. When it came to analyzing the coverage within social media, a vast
majority of articles used Twitter. In this current paper I am looking at Instagram accounts, which
vary slightly in the rules and procedures, since on Instagram a photo is necessary prior to
posting.

The Portrayal of Female Athletes in Media:

As mentioned above, scholars have found that women receive limited coverage, but when
looking further the type of content that they are putting out about women is troubling too (Adá-
Lameiras & Rodríguez-Castro 2023; Bernstein 2002; Cooky et al. 2015; Garcia & Proffitt 2022;
Kavanagh et al. 2019; Litchfield & Osborne 2018; Salido-Fernandez & Muñoz-Muñoz 2023).
This is not only from the news outlets/sports broadcasters themselves (Adá-Lameiras &
Rodríguez-Castro 2023; Bernstein 2002; Garcia & Proffitt 2022; Salido-Fernandez & Muñoz-
Muñoz 2023), but from the “fans” and what is written within the comment sections of these
medias (Bernstein 2002; Kavanagh et al. 2019). The categories that were most commonly found
within media were infantilization, gender marking, sexualization with heterosexual context
(Litchfield & Osborne 2018). An example of infantilization as shown by Litchfield & Osborne
would be referring to women as ‘girls’ or naming them by their first name (p. 51). Gender
marking is the addition of the word women or girls in front of an organization or using terms that
have gendered connotations (Litchfield & Osborne 2018; Salido-Fernandez & Muñoz-Muñoz
2023). Sexualization with heterosexual context seemed to be the most prominent in research
papers which includes not just the sexualization of women, but also placing them in gendered
roles, such as emphasizing their motherhood and femininity (Kavanagh et al. 2019; Litchfield &
Osborne 2018; Salido-Fernandez & Muñoz-Muñoz 2023). These kinds of topics have been
studied and analyzed for a long time, most notably Cooky et al. 25-year longitude study. Many
agree that there have been improvements, but at an underlying cost (Adá-Lameiras & Rodríguez-
Castro 2023; Cooky et al. 2015; Salido-Fernandez & Muñoz-Muñoz 2023). In the case Adá-
Lameiras & Rodríguez-Castro (2023), they found that while this gender stereotyping for female
athletes themselves has gone down, it has shifted to the group of non-athlete females (p. 692).
Other studies had a different conclusion, that the obvious sexualization of female athletes has
gone down, but it has shifted into less noticeable to the femininity and heterosexual norms of
women, such as being a mother (Adá-Lameiras & Rodríguez-Castro 2023; Cooky et al. 2015).
Additionally, Bernstein (2002) found in two cases that women who were fitting into these
heterosexual roles generally got more media attention compared to the athletes actually dominant
within their sport. This kind of portrayal was not only something that was done by media outlets
themselves, but the so-called fans of these sports also contributed through media (Garcia &
Proffitt 2022; Kavanagh et al. 2019). Both papers found that social media became a place where
people threaten and harass women. Garcia & Proffitt explain “Social media become spaces to
reclaim that power through online violence against women who challenge Portnoy (Barstool
Owner), who in turn mobilizes the Stoolies (Barstool fans) to defend his position,” (p. 741).
While these studies share the idea that violence through social media by fans does occur, one
focused on the hate that female broadcasters and workers of Barstool (Garcia & Proffitt 2022)
and the other study focused on the top female tennis players (Kavanagh et al. 2019). The
Kavanagh et al. (2019) study did some more in-depth research on what kind of comments these
women were getting. They found most if it pertained sexual aspects, ranging from desire for
sexual acts to the threatening of sexual acts (p. 562). Similarly, Garcia & Proffitt (2022) found
hate that came from Portnoy or his Stoolie fans was consistent with the sexual appeal that female
reporters had (p. 736). All these papers together share the common theme that women are still
struggling to be portrayed in a respectful light. This idea is valuable in regard to the present
paper, because how media and fans talk about basketball players, teams, and leagues can tell us a
lot about the public success specific basketball industries have had. While it can also help answer
what kind of positions they are in today.

National Basketball Association (NBA) & Women’s National Basketball

Association (WNBA):
When conducting research within the basketball industry it is important to take a deeper
dive into the longest women’s basketball league, the WNBA and the oldest men's league, the
NBA (Agha & Berri 2023). These leagues share similarities such as being American professional
basketball leagues and sharing connections from a financial viewpoint. Although this is true, it
seems like they are not very comparable (Agha & Berri 2023; Berri et al. 2004; Walker et al.
2022). Notably, these leagues are at different times in their history with the NBA’s 8th season
being in 1953/54, while the WNBA’s 8th season was in 2004 (Agha & Berri, 2023 p.39). When
going in depth into the leagues during the same time frame, it was found that they aren’t
comparable, due to the differences in demand. While the old NBA and WNBA demand were
both driven by successes such as wins and lagged titles, the prevalence of star players only
played a role in the NBA (Agha & Berri, 2023 pp. 42-43). This is consistent with the finding of
Berri et al. (2004), which stated that “Although star power was found to be statistically
significant in this present study, the ability of a team to generate wins appears to be the engine
that drives consumer demand,” (p. 45). While it may not be the driving factor, it isn’t something
seen in the WNBA which saw lagged titles as the most important thing. The NBA and WNBA
also have different season times and rules. Simply put, these games are not the same (Agha &
Berri 2023). One of these differences, the presence of dunking, was looked at in some more
depth (Walker et al. 2022). It was found that dunks had no relevance to economic gains. Which
indicated that emotional support is a bigger factor. This emotional factor is created by time,
which both studies noted. This means that due to the time differences these leagues have, this
isn’t comparable (Agha & Berri 2023; Walker et al. 2022). Understanding these leagues is
important to present research because it shows us the factors that could play into the comparisons
made within this study. Certain factors such as emotional relationships have been further
developed in the NBA (Agha & Berri, 2023 p.42), which could have an impact on the results of
this study.
 Annotated Bibliography

Adá-Lameiras, A., & Rodríguez-Castro, Y. (2023). Analysis from a gender perspective of the
Olympic Games on Twitter. European Sport Management Quarterly, 23(3), 683–699.
https://doi.org/10.1080/16184742.2021.1910965

The goal of this research was to see the coverage of female athletes through traditional media
Twitter accounts in Spain during a mega-event like the Olympics. Another goal was to go
beyond just the amount of coverage, but also analyze the type of coverage. They looked at 4
Spanish news accounts on Twitter. Where they categorized both the images and the texts from
each tweet. They found that most tweets about women (around 20% of total) were positive and
highlighted the women’s athletic success. When it came to the photos, the majority of photos
consisted of women in sportswear, doing their sport. Only 9% were established to have sexual
connotations (p. 691). Overall, men still experienced much more coverage than women. The
women’s coverage though, was mainly positive and that shows that the stereotyping that these
athletes faced has not disappeared but is shifting towards non-athlete females. Adding that the
change to close the gap is not being seen on Twitter. This connects to my current research
because when comparing men’s and women’s basketball leagues the portrayal of these athletes is
important to consider when it comes to success.

Agha, N., & Berri, D. (2023). Demand for Basketball: A Comparison of the WNBA and NBA.
International Journal of Sport Finance, 18(1), 35–44.
https://doi.org/10.32731/IJSF/181.022023.03

With all the comparisons of the WNBA and the NBA being made, the goal of this paper was to
see if it was reasonable to compare the demand of the WBA and the NBA during the same time
in their lifecycle. To do this they proposed three comparisons (current WNBA/NBA, past NBA
and current NBA, and current WNBA and past NBA). In the first two the expectation was
different, while the last comparison was believed to have similar results. They compared each
league with three variables: game attendance per game, team quality, and player quality (39).
The results showed that the current NBA and WNBA could not be compared due to different
demands in each league, as well as the old NBA with the current NBA (41). For the current
WNBA with the old NBA, it was also determined that these leagues had different demands and
could not be compared despite similar life cycle periods. The reasons for this were concluded to
be “differences related to external marketplaces, the leagues themselves, and the product,” (42).
This data led to the conclusion that it is unfair to make these sorts of comparisons due to the
large amount of differences between each league (43). Since the research I am planning on
conducting deals with the basketball industry, it is important to understand two of the biggest
leagues in the world.

Berri, D. J., Schmidt, M. B., & Brook, S. L. (2004). Stars at the Gate: The Impact of Star Power
on NBA Gate Revenues. Journal of Sports Economics, 5(1), 33–50.
https://doi.org/10.1177/152700250325401

This study's primary focus was looking at the impact of star players on the demand of basketball,
since previous research has indicated that the NBA had a low competitive balance, which was
one of the big drivers in demand. To do this they used a quantitative approach through equations
to get the results. The results showed that “Although star power was found to be statistically
significant in this present study, the ability of a team to generate wins appears to be the engine
that drives consumer demand,” (p. 45). Additionally, they agreed with the possibility that stars
may have a greater impact when they are on the road. Knowing the driving factors of each league
is important to the present research I am planning to conduct because it allows us to see what
aspects of the league bring the most success.

Bernstein, Alina. 2002. “Is it time for a Victory Lap?: Changes in the Media Coverage of
Women in Sport.” International Review for the Sociology of Sport 37(3): 415-428.

Throughout this piece Bernstein talks about the relationship between women, sports, and the
media. To do this she used key examples with Marion Jones and Anna Kournikova. With Marion
Jones she explains that while being the “fastest woman in the world” (p. 242), since she was
confident in her wins she was labeled as arrogant. During those Olympics the most photographed
athlete was Amy Acuff who seemed to fit the femininity better despite the dominance Marion
Jones had in her field. Anna Kournikova had a similar story. Her physical appearance made her
one of the most covered athletes, even though many other players were gaining more athletic
success than her. With these stories in mind, Bernstein concluded that while coverage was
improving, especially during major international events, routine coverage wasn’t. Additionally,
though it is improving, the type of coverage women do get still portrays them in a sexualized
manner that places them secondary to male sports. She adds that this coverage is not benefiting
women’s sports since it places them in a role that still serves men. This is relevant to the present
research because knowing media coverage on women is important because it can impact what
fans are saying and the public opinions on players within the basketball industry.

Billings A. C., Young B. D. (2015). Comparing flagship news programs: Women’s sport
coverage in ESPN’s SportsCenter and FOX Sports 1’s Fox Sports Live. Electronic News,
9, 3–16.

The goal of this paper was to answer the questions of if SportsCenter and FOX Sports Live have
different proportions of coverage of women’s sports, different types of sports, and finally if
women get more coverage in the Winter period (due to the Winter Olympics) (p. 7).
Additionally, they wanted to see if women would get less than 5% of coverage from each show.
They took 118 hours of footage (59 from each) and coded it. They found that women were
presented around 1% of the time. In regard to the different proportion of coverage, there was not
any. When it came to the kind of sport portrayed, the shows were “virtual mirror images” of one
another (p.10). Lastly, they found that coverage women received during the Winter period did
significantly improve. With this they concluded that “At the macro-level, this study shows that
both networks promote frames in which men’s sports are amplified while women’s sports are
negated,” (p. 13). Additionally, male sports outside of the ‘big three” (basketball, football, and
baseball) are also negated. This is relevant to my current research because it provides a new
perspective that men’s basketball is in a space of extensive coverage compared to women’s
basketball.
Coche, R., & Tuggle, C. A. (2023). A Quarter Century of NBC’s Prime-Time Summer
Olympics: A Sex-Based Analysis of the Network’s Coverage. Journal of Sports Media,
18(1), 43–74.
This research wanted to look at the last 25 years’ worth of NBC Olympic coverage. They did this
through a sex-based analysis. Prior to research they developed a couple hypotheses: men will be
overrepresented based on success (H1), women will receive less coverage in hard contact/power
sports (H2), and excluding gymnastics, women will have less coverage in team sports (H3), NBC
will rely on more male sources than female sources (H4), and that NBC speakers will most likely
be men (H5) (pp. 52-53). They did this by collecting NBC prime-time coverage and sorting it
into categories that then can be turned into quantitative results. H1 was partially supported, due
to the fact the individual Olympics did not reflect the hypothesis. H2 was supported since men
got more coverage than women. H3 was rejected because other sports like beach volleyball had
more female coverage, they did say that “excluding beach volleyball shows that the more
traditional team sports aired on NBC tended to be men’s competitions” (p. 59). H4 and H5 were
also supported. Concluding that although coverage from NBC during the Summer Olympics is
more balanced, the latest editions still had hegemonic masculine cues still exist within NBC’s
coverage. Understanding that the Olympics is a special period of women’s media coverage in
sports is important so that if research is done during this time this factor can be accounted for.

Cooky, C., Messner, M. A., & Musto, M. (2015). It’s Dude Time!: A Quarter Century of
Excluding Women’s Sports in Televised News and Highlight Shows. Communication
and Sport, 3(3), 261–287. https://doi.org/10.1177/2167479515588761

Cooky et al. is giving an update to a 25-year longitudinal study done in 1989. They collected
data through 3 Los Angeles local news channels (KNBC, KABC, and KCBS) and ESPN’s
Sportscenter during the 6pm and 11pm segments through 3 different points in the year. The goal
of this data collection was to see the amount that women were shown and the manner they were
shown in. There were many research questions that were being looked at but to summarize all
the questions Cooky et al. said, “What are the continuities and discontinuities in the coverage
over the past 25 years?” (264). When looking at the segments they concluded women had a low
percentage of coverage (3.2%) and this was a dip compared to coverage 25 years ago. (Cooky et
al. 266). Additionally, it seemed that coverage was only going to the “Big Three” when it came
to men’s sports (football, basketball, and baseball) meaning that secondary men's sports were
also suffering (268-270). When looking at how women were covered changes had occurred.
They noted that women were now being covered in a more respectful manner that included less
sexualization. The findings find that while they receive less of that many segments find ways to
connect their athletic achievements with heterosexual characteristics, such as motherhood.
Cooky et al. say that this “reveals a gender asymmetry that subtly communicates ambivalence
about women athletes,” (277). As well they noted that women didn’t generally receive the same
enthusiasm and graphics compared to their male counterparts. Overall, the findings found that
while the sexually fueled insults and stories had decreased the overall coverage on women’s
sports had also decreased and that the stories that do get shown position women in gendered
themes such as motherhood and lack the excitement present in male sports (280). This study is
important for the current research because due to its longitude it shows us the shifts of coverage
that have occurred in women’s sports.
Garcia, C. J., & Proffitt, J. M. (2022). Recontextualizing Barstool Sports and Misogyny in
Online US Sports Media. Communication and Sport, 10(4), 730–745.
https://doi.org/10.1177/21674795211042409
Through this study they qualitatively analyze the Barstool company and more specifically the
owner Dave Portnoy. To do this they looked at the history of Barstool and how Dave Portnoy
created a “bro culture reputation as he offered his unfiltered opinions among photographs of
scantily clad women” (p. 734). Additionally, they looked at how they spoke about women. They
had articles with the names “Guess that Ass” and “Smokeshow of the Day,” these were deemed
as sexualizing women. Secondly, they looked at the response that female reporters that criticized
Barstool were treated and the company's response. They found that many of these women were
either sexualized or deemed as liars, with this came a flood of media hate from not only Dave
Portnoy, but his Stoolies (fans of Barstool) as well. The conclusion was that while Barstool had a
community working with them, they continued to support the online harassment of female
reports and the male dominance of women’s sports. This article is important to the current study
because it shows the hate that women in this industry get, which is an aspect that I want to
analyze within the basketball leagues.

Hull, K. (2017). An Examination of Women’s Sports Coverage on the Twitter Accounts of Local
Television Sports Broadcasters. Communication and Sport, 5(4), 471–491.
https://doi.org/10.1177/2167479516632520

Hull, through this research paper, had the goal of answering 5 research questions that ranged
from how much women are represented in local sports broadcasters’ tweets, which sports are
being represented, do smaller areas represent women more, and if female broadcasters show
women more than male broadcasters (477-478). To conduct the research, they got a random
sample of local broadcasters from 210 DMAs and randomly selected 201 accounts to follow
using the constructed weeks in October and November. The results found that 63% of local
broadcasters did at least tweet about women once. In total though only 4.3% of all tweets were
about women. The sport that was most tweeted about was high school volleyball (important to
note that it was in-season at this time). They also found that smaller markets were more likely to
promote women. Lastly, women local broadcasters were tweeting less about women compared to
men. In conclusion, they found a troubling lack of coverage of women’s sports in sports media
and that female broadcasters may be less likely to write about women because of workplace
pressures. Finally, Hull claimed that time could not be an excuse any more since Twitter lacks
that constraint so now broadcasters are just ignoring women’s athletes. (486-487). Understanding
the idea women coverage lacks in all areas is important to the current research because it is going
to be conducted in a similar online space.

Kavanagh, E., Litchfield, C., & Osborne, J. (2019). Sporting Women and Social Media:
Sexualization, Misogyny, and Gender-Based Violence in Online Spaces. International
Journal of Sport Communication, 12(4), 552–572. https://doi.org/10.1123/ijsc.2019-0079

This research paper's focus was to look at high-profile female athletes and the gender -based
violence that they experience directly through social media (Twitter and Facebook). More
specifically they looked at the top 5 seeded women’s tennis players during the Wimbledon
Tennis Championship (563). They collected tweets and comments from the 5 players' social
media, Wimbledon, British sport outlets, and the National Governing Bodies of tennis during
live matches of each athlete. They collected data that fit the words in their query that were
defined as violent such as “Serena Williams AND bitch OR screamer OR sexy OR slag;” (565).
With this the data found was organized into four major themes that were found: hate speech and
threats of physical violence; sexualization related to physical appearances; sexual propositions
and desire for sexual contact; threats of sexual violence (566). The results found 1095 pieces of
abusive content and most of them directed to Serena Williams (773 comment) they noted this
could be due to “her size, strength, dominance of the game, and African-American heritage,”
(574). Overall, all these women faced the discrimination defined by the 4 categories above. They
discussed the possibility of these comments being a way to keep/protect the manhood that came
with sports and by saying these things it was a way to dominate women. They concluded that
women in sports truly do face a lot of violent hate within social media. Arguing that the research
should be broadening to more sports and studying the legal and mental aspects of this research is
very important for the future. This research is important because it can help provide a basis of
what we could possibly expect from comments in the Instagram posts.

Litchfield, C., & Osborne, J. (2015). Women in the Sports Pages: A Brief Insight into Olympic
and Non-Olympic Years in Australia. The International Journal of Sport and Society,
4(4), 45–56. https://doi.org/10.18848/2152-7857/CGP/v04i04/53986

This paper written by Litchfield and Osborne dives into the sports media space. More
specifically into the question if print media on females during the Olympics still contained
language that “feminized, gender marked, infantilized, and heterosexualized” them (p. 45).
Additionally, how the print media compared during non-Olympic years. When conducting the
study, they tried to use ideas from a theoretical framework. They collected the data through 3
newspapers within Australia in a small time frame (August 9-11) over 5 years (from 2008-2012).
After collecting them they analyzed quantitatively to develop percentages of data and
qualitatively through figuring out if it contained the language defined above. The results showed
that the Olympics did raise the amount of women’s sports coverage, but that it continued to be
far behind men’s coverage. When it came to the language it was found that articles contained
infantilizing, femininity, and gender marking. For example, infantilizing was defined as calling
women “girls” and using their first names opposed to their surnames (p. 51) in which they found
several examples such as ‘BMX bias has Aussie girls just a little wary’ (The Daily Telegraph, 9
August 2012) (51). The conclusion was that while language devaluing women’s sports is known
as old practice, the evidence of “low percentage of articles that are written about women’s sports
and women athletes and the use of language by many of these articles,” shows that it is still a
problem that is prevalent today. This is important to the current research because it backs up
evidence in other sources about women’s coverage in sports media.

Sainz-de-Baranda, Clara, Alba Adá-Lameiras, and Marian Blanco-Ruiz. “Gender Differences in

Sports News Coverage on Twitter.” International journal of environmental research and
public health 17.14 (2020): 5199-. Web.

The goal of this research paper was to analyze from a gender perspective media coverage of
women’s sports, more specifically on Twitter. The research question they proposed was “Do
news communication channels, such as Twitter, maintain gender stereotypes when reporting
sports?” (2). They collected media that was considered a sport by the Spanish Olympic
Committee (COE) and looked at the tweets on random days (excluding Olympics period) from
two general news channels with sports sections and two sport news media accounts. These were
all seen as popular within Spain. They analyzed the data through Cramer’s V to see if any
relationships were present (>0.3 = moderate and >0.6 = strong). The results found that women
were only represented 3.81% of the time (3). They also looked at image usage within these posts
and found that women were likely to have a photo accompanying the tweet. When looking at
each sport it was clear that football (soccer) was the most represented for both men and women.
This could be due to its immense popularity throughout Spain. Importantly they found that “there
was an elevated presence of tweets that made references to any sport, and it was the second most
common type of news in which a woman was most likely to appear,” (5). Conclusions that Sainz
et al. were that while Spanish women are succeeding at the international level in a variety of
sports, women’s sports coverage continues to not be represented in the media, specifically
Twitter. They added on by saying that “The aforementioned confirms that sports media continues
to be a highly masculine space that doesn’t represent the evolution that has indeed occurred in
the practice of sports,” (10). Importantly they did note that sports coverage is gender biased to
‘gender appropriate’ sports in Spain, and that football was the only exception to this. This paper
shows us that some sports are perhaps changing in trends, given that basketball is a popular sport
it is important to see that this could be a possibility.

Salido-Fernandez, J., & Muñoz-Muñoz, A. M. (2023). Men’s and Women’s Basketball Coverage
in the Spanish Digital Press During the 2016 Rio Olympics. Journalism Practice, 17(8),
1722–1739. https://doi.org/10.1080/17512786.2021.2004199

Through this paper the authors’ goal was to look at the coverage of Spain’s male and female
basketball teams and see if there were differences in coverage from a gender perspective. The 5
hypotheses formulated stated that men would be covered, receive recognition, have higher
expectations, and be external sources more than women. They collected the data through digital
daily newspapers from two news outlets in Spain (Marca.com and MundoDeportivo.com) from a
period that spanned before, during, and after the Olympics. Once they collected them, they were
analyzed by sport, gender, authorship, external source, etc. The results showed that women were
significantly underrepresented, only getting 20.1% of coverage despite the participation of
athletes between the men and women being 50/50. The articles themselves also differed, men
had more articles devoted to individual players than women, more photographs, and longer
articles. Salido and Muñoz-Muñoz also made a point that the writers of these articles are mainly
men and that could play a role in the writing as well. Additionally, the women placed higher in
the tournament getting silver and the men bronze, despite this they found women still got less
coverage. When looking deeper they found that 82.3% of articles contained some type of gender
bias (gender marking, infantilizing, etc.) (1732-1733). They concluded that there was unequal
representation between Spanish men and women basketball during the Olympic games. This
article is important to the current research because it shows more direct comparisons between
men and women within basketball.

Walker, N., Allred, T., & Berri, D. (2022). Could More Dunking Really Help the WNBA?
International Journal of Sport Finance, 17(4), 187–200.
https://doi.org/10.32731/IJSF/174.112022.01
The goal of this paper was to answer the question, “Is consumer demand and revenue in sports
driven by the entertainment spectacle of the contest or the emotional attachment derived from
wins and losses?” (187). In respect to the WNBA, they wanted to see if the men's game is
gaining more revenue due to the fact they dunk, and the women do not. Additionally, if that were
true would that be a way for the women’s league to gain more revenue. The article answers
through an economic standpoint. To see if dunking had an impact on revenue they checked to see
if teams that dunked more had more revenue at the gate. They did the same thing for 3-point
shooting which is present in both the NBA and the WNBA. They found that dunking had no
correlation with team success. Once they looked at everything, they found that gate revenue was
a function of team success, team characteristics, and market size. Scoring innovation (such as
dunking and three-point shooting) had no impact on gate revenue (196). This meant that fans
seemed to only care about winning, which is consistent with the idea that emotional attachment
to team success is what drives revenue. Regarding the WNBA this concluded that dunking was
not the answer to more revenue. This article is important because it shows the factors that do or
don’t impact success of basketball leagues.