NCAA Website Coverage: An Analysis of Similar Sport Team Gender Coverage on Athletic Department’s Home Web Pages

Since the implementation of Title IX, women have received increasing educational participation opportunities within the intercollegiate athletic setting (Student-athlete, 2006). While female athletic participation rates are at an all-time high in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA Sports, 2006), some additional concerns arise when focusing on promotional media coverage provided to women on athletic departments’ home Web pages. The purpose of the current study was to investigate the coverage (advertisement, article, multimedia, and photograph) provided to similar sport teams on intercollegiate athletic websites during an academic year. Despite the fact that women’s softball teams consistently received less coverage than men’s baseball teams, the results illustrated that men’s and women’s similar sport teams receive comparable coverage allocations on intercollegiate athletic department’s home Web pages. The implications of the findings are discussed in depth in the paper