Journal of Sport and Social Issues

Prevailing depictions of the nationwide discussions regarding Title IX and gender equity typically represent those discussions as adversarial in both tone and nature, as seen in linguistic devices such as the “battle of the sexes,” a “dispute,” a “fight,” and a “tug-of-war.” This article develops the position that the reliance on an adversarial model as the predominant framework on which the Title IX and gender equity discourse is structured not only polarizes educational decision makers but also precludes genuine problem solving. In this article, the limitations of an adversarial form of discourse along with an examination of the real issues at stake (i.e., student experience and the integrity of educational institutions) are considered in detail.

Survey method was used to test the assertion that increases in women's sports programs since Title IX led to cutbacks in men's sports programs. A subsample of 637 National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA)-affiliated schools reported the numbers of men's and women's sports programs on their campuses that were added or eliminated between 1978 and 1996. All five NCAA divisions were represented. Data analyses revealed that whereas women netted a total gain of 1,658 sports programs during those years, men netted on overall gain of 74 across all NCAA divisions in the time frame. Men's sports programs did show a net decrease of 152 programs, but only in Division I-A and I-AA schools. The results suggest that increases in women's sports programs between 1978 and 1996 were not accompanied by downsizing of men's programs except for Division I-A and I-AA schools with the largest athletic budgets.

Widespread public awareness of “groupies”—women who seek relationships with male celebrities—in American professional baseball dates to the 1970s, particularly to the release of popular films such as Bull Durham and the publication of several insider accounts of the lives of ballplayers. This article, based on interviews with groupies and with major and minor league ballplayers, first examines the motivations of the women who pursue such relationships with ballplayers and the strategies they use to get attention. It then turns to the players' attitudes toward groupies and their relationships with them. The groupie phenomenon plays out on a small stage the larger gender roles played by women and men in American society, with desirability for women defined largely in terms of physical attractiveness and for men defined largely in terms of achieved skills as measured by money and fame.

Does spectator gender exert an appreciable influence on the enjoyment of sports? Are men generally more intrigued with athletic competition, or might there be a gender gap in enjoyment that is specific to particular sports? The findings of the present investigation show that male and female spectators enjoy distinctly different types of sports. Males were found to be partial to football, ice hockey, basketball, soccer, baseball, boxing, and karate. Females, by contrast, expressed greater enjoyment of gymnastics, skiing, diving, and figure skating. The enjoyment differentiation by gender suggests that men extract gratification mostly from seeing athletic confrontations that emphasize combative coordination, whereas women are more gratified when seeing competition that avoids overt aggressiveness and highlights the stylish movement of individual bodies in terms of beauty.

Previous studies of on-air promotion have produced conflicting results, ranging from findings of high effectiveness for promos in comedies to nearly total ineffectiveness for promos in sporting events. Using videotape of the 1996 Summer Olympics, this study analyzed 183 on-air promos for prime-time shows carried within prime-time coverage of the Olympic Games in Atlanta, Georgia. Along with the impact of lead-ins, results demonstrated that promos within the Olympic broadcasts apparently had a surprisingly large effect on NBC's prime-time ratings, although a welter of other factors probably bolstered the effect. For the first time, and contrary to results for the 1992 Winter and Summer Olympics, the industry assumption that an Olympic Games may be an ideal platform for promoting prime-time programs merited support.

The current investigation extended previous research on gender inequities in media coverage of athletics. Sports sections from three university-sponsored newspapers were examined. Researchers recorded the number of male and female authors, number of articles focusing on male and female athletics, number of lines focusing on male and female athletics, and number of photos focusing on male and female athletes. Results revealed that male athletics received greater levels of coverage than did female athletics and that the percentages of female coverage were less than the percentages of female students enrolled and the percentages of female varsity sports offered at the target institutions. The inequities were greater at the two larger universities. Discussion centers on reasons underlying the findings.

This study examined sports journalists' beliefs about the problems in their field. It used a combination of a standardized survey and in-depth follow-up interviews. The sports journalists saw their concerns as distinctly different from those of journalists in other news departments. Still, there were areas of shared concern, including professionalism and economic and job-related issues. Open-ended interviews with a representative sample of the sports editors highlighted the interrelatedness of various problems. There were, for example, close relations between problems connected to content and reporting. Competition also appeared to be associated with other concerns including professionalism, economic troubles, and job-related problems. The open-ended interviews also revealed how some problems (e.g., competition, diversity), although not at the top of the list of most important problems, were intertwined with many other problems. The sports journalists expressed considerable hostility toward broadcast sports journalists for diminishing their status.