On Monday night in the NCAA tournament, the UConn Huskies extended their historic win streak to 111 games and ended a Cinderella run of a 10-seed Oregon team that’s one to watch for years to come. In the second game, South Carolina — a team that’s been plagued with injuries and depends on a freshman point guard — held off 3-seed Florida State, a team that wouldn’t go away even as it seemed like the Gamecocks were on the verge of pulling away.
So with the conclusion of those games, a very good Final Four of Stanford, UConn, South Carolina and Mississippi State is set. It’s a Final Four with a number of stars, storylines and fine student-athletes who are that in every sense of the word.
But on the NCAA website, with the exception of a link to box scores, this news can’t be found until you scroll down a bit on the homepage page. Which is far better than it was on Monday, when the only mention of the women’s tournament was next to a story about fencing at the very bottom of the front page (no offense to fencing enthusiasts here).
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Through the internet archive site WaybackMachine, we can see that on Friday there were two mentions of the women’s game — both with poor placement. On Saturday, after 10-seed Oregon upset 3-seed Maryland to reach the Elite Eight and 12-seed Quinnipiac’s Cinderella run ended, it was a similar story.
I’m not the only one to notice this. This from Washington Post’s Sally Jenkins:
Before I take the NCAA to task, an admission: No media site, including USA TODAY Sports and For The Win gives equal placement to the women’s tournament as it does the men. It’s a sporting event that is generally undercovered. But as Jenkins points out, it’s an NCAA event. It is their responsibility to at least try to appear like they have equal stakes in both events.
The NCAA by law has to give equal funding for men and women’s sports — it’s called Title IX and it’s why this generation of women (including me) grew up not ever imagining a world in which it wasn’t just as likely for us to get a scholarship to play sports in college as it was for our male counterparts. The NCAA even has a commercial that has aired during March Madness — among other times — that has touted this.
But how can anyone take that seriously when the organization’s own website — until slightly improved placement on Tuesday — seemed to ignore on its homepage that the women’s tournament is happening? And ignore that UConn is on a run that will live in history books forever?
In an email to For The Win sent on Monday night before the final two women’s Elite Eight games, NCAA spokesperson Stacey Osburn said the women’s tournament would receive better placement on the website in the coming days.
“The plan for NCAA.com includes increased coverage of the Division I women’s basketball tournament in the coming days, including a lead story tonight and homepage prominence during games,” she wrote. “As fan consumption habits continue to evolve, we’re also providing real-time coverage of the event across social media platforms. We will continue to work with our media partners on coverage of this and all winter championships.”
It seems like they are doing just that — though it also seems a little late to start reminding fans to tune in. And even now, for every mention of the women’s game, there’s five times that for the men’s.
In its own advertising, the NCAA promises to build up men’s and women’s sports equally. They have a great product in the women’s tournament, especially this year.
It would be nice if they would market that.
