Twitter users compare men's basketball to the women's game

Although Butler left the floor feeling low after the men’s basketball national championship, it was women’s basketball that took a beating Monday night. In describing just how bad and boring the men’s final was, users of the site repeatedly compared it to the women’s game, implicitly discounting the sport in the process.

CBS analyst Roland S. Martin wrote “It is not a stretch to say that the women’s national championship game will be far more interesting.” Another blogger tweeted “I’d rather watch the #WNBA than this #NationalTitleGame.” ESPN.com’s “The sports guy” tweeted: April 2011: The month that women’s college basketball caught up to men’s college basketball. A

Make no mistake: The men’s national final was painful to watch. The two teams set a new record for lowest combined first half points total and Butler shot a horrid 18.8 percent from the field – the lowest mark ever in a national final game. And although UConn took home the trophy, they won by scoring just 53 points on 35 percent shooting.

The game was boring. Illustrating just how boring it was by comparing it to women’s basketball denies the women’s game the legitimacy it deserves. As Dave Zirin wrote, also on twitter. “I hope every last person hating on this game, watches the NCAA women's finals tomorrow. See two teams actually make shots.”

--Erin Whiteside

The sports beat: How much has it really changed?

The latest issue of Nieman Reports looks at the beat structure in news reporting and includes a special focus on sports departments. In a piece about the influence of new media on sports reporting, Curley Center Director Malcolm Moran writes that "competitive pressures are rewriting the rules" by challenging traditional practice in regard to verifying sources and ensuring accuracy. Lindsay Jones, a beat writer for The Denver Post, talks about how she aims to adhere to high journalistic standards even as she races to be the first on the story -- with her thumbs on her phone keypad -- via Twitter.
Not all has changed, however. In a story I wrote about the beat structure in sports departments, I argue that the infinite news hole created by new media hasn't really expanded coverage of women's sports, mostly because beat structures in sports departments haven't changed to allow it. In other words, the technologies may be new, and the challenges to reporters to get the story fast may be more intense, but the types of sports covered and the types of stories consumers get from media sources haven't really changed that much.
The bottom line: It'll take a lot more than technology to see substantive changes in sports media content.
--Marie Hardin

Focus: Women's sports and social media

Research in the Curley Center has recently turned to sports and social media -- especially in relationship to the opportunities and challenges for coverage of women's sports. The Tucker Center at the University of Minnesota is also focusing on this important topic. The Tucker Center's blog has two new entries that look at coverage of women's sports and at social media.
Dave Zirin's entry on coverage of women's sports covers some familiar territory for women's sport advocates as he recounts the stereotypes that are common themes (sexpot or mother, for instance). He doesn't extend his discussion into the sports blogosphere -- although the stereotypes he addresses are, unfortunately, common there, too.
The other intriguing entry on the Tucker Center blog addresses the ways women's sports advocates see social media: as a land of opportunity, a place where women's sports coverage and community can flourish. But is that happening?
There are pockets where great things are happening, including WomenTalkSports.com. But, as I'll discuss soon, we're really seeing more of the same sexism, homophobia and non-coverage of women's sports that "old media" has always given us. The question then has to be: Why?