Conclusion

To conclude the analysis, evaluation, and reflection of misogyny in sports, it is important to acknowledge the many ways in which women’s basketball (NCAA and the WNBA in various ways) is a snapshot, yet embodiment, of the still-evolving discrepancies between men’s and women’s sports. With women’s basketball, there are countless layers– race, appearance, rules, regulations– which are reflected when analyzing coverage and representation of women’s basketball and its NCAA March Madness tournament. That said, it is important to acknowledge that there is a significant difference in revenue which is brought in by NCAA women’s basketball compared to men’s due to the general popularity of the men’s tournament. This difference in revenue (brought into the NCAA, ESPN, and CBS) directly leads to an initial bias in coverage– both television and newspaper, as specifically broken down within this website.

Forty million Americans filled out March Madness brackets on ESPN.com in 2017. The University of Indiana, which leads the Big Ten Conference in athletic revenue, brought in $11.5 million this past year alone, due to their men’s basketball team’s involvement with March Madness in March and April. As a contributor to the Hartford Courant wrote in March of 2017, “Glory for Women, Money for Men in the NCAA Tournament.” Hartford, CT is home to the University of Connecticut, in which the No. 1 Division I Women’s Basketball Team exists.