hey y'all, this is a research paper i wrote in my advanced research seminar... by popular demand im gonna post it because i think it ended up being really interesting. the books i read to do this were also so so good, like BG's autobiography and pat summitt's too. took me like a week to write but it was so so interesting. hope u guys like it!
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From Scrutiny to Stardom: The Media Evolution of Women’s College Basketball
Research question: To what extent have media portrayals of women’s college basketball evolved from the ‘Old Era’ to the ‘New Era’, when did this turning point occur, and how much have these changes contributed to the sport’s growing popularity?
IB Extended Essay Language and Literature: Category 3
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Women’s college basketball: the cultural phenomenon that floods social media pages around the world. It seems as though it came out of nowhere, materializing in the early 2020s and sticking around since. But the truth is, it's always been around. Sitting on the back burner, waiting for its time to shine, while men’s sports dominated the media, the fans, and the world. As recounted by WNBA Star Brittney Griner, it survived periods where it would only be mentioned as a side note regarding a player’s gender, sexuality, or race. It thrived in moments of unbridled competition and fierce opposition. A dynamic, exciting, emotionally stimulating game, women’s college basketball is a rollercoaster that’s been bringing fans on an thrilling ride for decades.
Between 1990 and 2020 (the “Old Era”) the game was defined by big rivalries like UConn vs. Tennessee and UConn vs. Notre Dame, and ended up producing stars such as Diana Taurasi (drafted from UConn in 2004), Candace Parker (from Tennessee, 2008), Tina Charles (UConn, 2010), and Maya Moore (UConn, 2011). Powerhouse programs, like those which the game’s biggest stars played for, dominated the game both competitively and culturally.
But from the resurgence of Geno Auriemma’s legendary UConn dynasty in 2025 to the short stint of Caitlin Clark and Lisa Bluder’s Iowa squad in the early 2020s, women's college basketball is changing drastically. The star-studded sport is making headlines, breaking records, and drawing in more viewership than it’s ever seen. Some think this emergence seems out of the blue, unpredictable even, but in reality it has been brewing for quite some time. Since being sponsored by the NCAA in 1982, the sport has seen hundreds of iconic, big-name players.
Marking the transition from the ‘Old Era’ to the ‘New Era’ (2020-present), players like Taurasi, Charles, and Parker started to be replaced by modern legends like Breanna Stewart, Sabrina Ionescu, and A’ja Wilson. But, what makes today’s game different from the past isn’t just great players. It’s how much the world sees of them, their personalities, and their presence off the court. Though the problem was that, before social media, the only sources of information for fans would be heavily manipulated media narratives and expertly crafted headlines. Platforms like Facebook (started in 2004) and Instagram (2010) helped athletes to show their own personal styles and connect directly with their fans on a different level. Players’ hobbies, traits, skills, and sexualities have all become common grounds for healthy bonding with fans. More people celebrating their differences and appreciating their similarities, a major contrast to the judgemental and scrutinizing nature of the world before social media. This has come hand in hand with cultural shifts over the last few years, with the growing visibility of LGBTQ athletes and creation of online fan communities that have changed how enthusiasts engage with the sport.
Perhaps fueled by their well-earned “hype” on social media, the turning point in the sport’s popularity came after being blessed by the recruiting class of 2020. A group of electrifying, dynamic high school stars, the 2020 seniors were destined to have a major impact on their game at the collegiate level. They brought remarkable motivation and passion to the NCAA, taking their respective colleges by storm and playing hard through tremendous adversity. But even among incredible athletes like Angel Reese, Cameron Brink, Hailey Van Lith and Kamila Cardoso, two stars stood out above the rest. They became household names, cementing their identities as some of the greatest to ever grace the college basketball stage. Caitlin Clark and Paige Bueckers ignited the flame under the ‘New Era’ of women’s basketball.
Since Clark and Bueckers began to play in college, the sport is now fueled by social media visibility, cultural movements regarding gender and identity, and a new group of athletes who are just as famous and impactful on a ‘For You’ page as they are on the court. The surge in the appeal for women’s basketball today brings up an important question: To what extent have media portrayals of women’s college basketball evolved from the ‘Old Era’ to the ‘New Era’, when did this turning point occur, and how much have these changes contributed to the sport’s growing popularity? This essay will dive deeper into that transformation and conclusions drawn from it. As the world becomes more open and accepting of different identities, it seems as though the media has an important obligation to carefully and accurately represent female athletes, since the narratives that headlines build shape how the women are perceived.
The ‘Old Era’ Media Landscape
During the ‘Old Era’ (between 1990 and 2020), women’s college basketball was home to some of the biggest rivalries in sports. Even with the severely limited amount of media coverage allotted, most was taken up by such rivalries and the chaos surrounding them. Those rivalry matchups were often the ones streamed nationally, as opposed to standard regular season games. This era also saw the development of generational talents (for example, Taurasi, Parker, and Charles) who became household names and cemented themselves into basketball history. Some might think that the portrayals of those rivalries and athletes caused most media narratives to be straightforward, but that is far from the truth. This era in media was underlined by many cultural issues, which created a big challenge for anyone trying to represent the sport accurately.
This section will dive deeper into the specific characteristics of women’s basketball media during the ‘Old Era’. Two main parts will be examined: first, the struggle for widespread media visibility, and second, the way players are portrayed in media, more specifically pertaining to gender and sexuality. Both factors can be used to show the inconsistent and unfair representation of female athletes, since women’s and men’s sports often competed for broadcast slots in a world where men’s sports were highly dominant. It is important to understand these dynamics and stereotypes if viewers want to truly see female athletes for who they are and not just what the skewed media narratives show them to be.
A main example of the men’s vs. women’s theme going on during this ‘Old Era’, is how women’s college basketball games often needed to fight for prime-time slots on major television networks. Even though certain games invoked what would be considered more than enough interest to be broadcast, networks were not able to turn that interest into broadcast priority. Very solid ratings were given to the most anticipated matchups, as explained in Jeff Goldberg’s Unrivaled. For example the 1994 UConn vs. Tennessee game, an MLK Day special, earned a 1.0 rating nationally . Tennessee star Kellie Jolly also talked about the buzz around the game: "People were excited about women's basketball. That was huge for our sport [...] no game was talked about like Tennessee-Connecticut." Headlines regarding women’s basketball though, showed how much the world doubted the sport and its growth. An example of this is a 1994 article in The New York Times, headlined, “COLLEGE BASKETBALL; N.C.A.A. Women Are Tipping Off In Untapped Areas”. By using words like ‘untapped’ and ‘tipping off’, the headline implies that the sport is entering an area that the world never thought it would reach. Although the wording might have been questionable, it did what was rarely done at the time: it acknowledged that there was in fact a tipping point and women’s basketball was reaching it. This, along with the attention on the 1994 MLK game, were major accomplishments for the sport, proving that viewers would in fact tune in to nationally broadcasted games. This was to the great pleasure of many ESPN network executives, but was particularly appreciated by Carol Stiff, a women’s sports content coordinator who eventually rose to the position of Vice President of Women's Sports Programming & Acquisitions . In Unrivaled, she notes, "You couldn’t walk away from the fact that [the Martin Luther King Day] game rated a 1.0, at one in the afternoon. I was pretty thrilled with that number. I would love to get that nowadays." After great successes like the MLK day game in 1994, “the NCAA and major networks signed a new contract in the spring of 1995, granting ESPN exclusive broadcasting rights to the women’s regional finals and Final Four beginning in 1996”. This created exposure and the sport began to gain more traction.
The effects of this event, which seemed promising, quickly disappeared. Other networks took over the coverage of the main rivalry games, and their priorities were not always centered around women’s sports. As Goldberg explains, "the contract stated that the [UConn-Tennessee] game was under the SEC contract and CBS gets first choice.” Since they only needed to broadcast three regular season games, CBS would schedule them as triple-headers during the same time NFL wild card weekends. This caused the basketball matchups to go up against more popular football broadcasts. Stiff was upset about the situation, expressing how she didn’t think it was right that "big marquee game[s] in prime time" were often "put up against the NFL playoffs.”
These factors made the sport unable to reach a wider audience, causing rivals to play multiple times in a season just to gain viewership.
Tennessee legend Pat Summitt talks in her autobiography Sum It Up about a conversation she had with her greatest nemesis, UConn coach and 12-time national champion Geno Auriemma. She explains that one of the few things she and Auriemma had in common was their interest in growing the sport. Summitt agreed to Auriemma’s proposal for the ESPN game on MLK day, even though her team was clearly disadvantaged. Summitt stated, "I couldn’t say no. I’d always felt a tremendous responsibility to give back to the game... So I said yes. And we lost.” This decision she made, which prioritized the good of the sport over her own team, shows how most coaches were very dedicated to improving the visibility of the game. The stubbornness and blatant sexism of TV networks led coaches and players to react and make decisions they might not have otherwise made, simply to increase viewership.
Society in the ‘Old Era’ also put a lot of pressure on female athletes. Instead of just being appreciated for their talent on the court, they were examined and judged on other parts of their identities. The media compared things like gender, where women’s basketball players would be put up against their male counterparts, and their “femininity” would be questioned. Brittney Griner’s experience, as she documents in her autobiography In My Skin, serves as a way to understand the scrutiny faced by female athletes regarding their identities. In the book, Griner talks about the public obsession with her physical appearance, gender, and sexuality as a 6’9” gay woman. She explains, “My decision [...] fueled crazy conspiracy theories about me—how I'm secretly a man, and I wanted to avoid genetic testing at the Olympics." This created an environment where discussions about the physical appearance and gender conformity of the female athletes moved focus away from their true skill in-game. Instead of putting in the majority of their effort on improving their game, they needed to navigate a world where their value wouldn’t even be judged on it. Griner’s quote can be tied to the themes of “ignorance and hate” that Griner had mentioned earlier in her book, which emphasizes how societal biases played a main role in the invasive media narratives. This speculation about things out of Griner’s control undermined her achievements and forced viewers to talk about her personal identity instead. It exemplifies the added burden on female athletes during that period, one that made them defend themselves against public scrutiny, and one that was barely ever seen by men’s players.
The uncertainty and hate for LGBTQ athletes was way more constrained in the ‘Old Era’. Even though social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram were out at that point, there was still not much discussion or acceptance about or for LGBTQ athletes yet. Because of that, media coverage of players’ sexuality was often careful, subtle, or just completely ignored. Media sources avoided those subjects because of preexisting stereotypes that limited how information could be conveyed non-judgmentally. As research done by sociologist Michael Messner concluded, "women’s sports get much less coverage, claimed to be because of stereotypes or lack of enthusiasm.” That lack of support and harsh environment meant that athletes needed to navigate their careers while also considering dominant societal norms. Thus proving why it was so important for the media to represent these athletes fairly and accurately, since any obscurities about their personal lives would be torn about and pull attention away from their game.
Evidently, the years from 1990-2020 made up a period where society not only judged women unfairly, but severely undervalued women’s sports and talent. A main cause of this was the pre-existing societal opinions of women and their abilities. Most media platforms were unable to keep up with the constant progression or inclusivity and acceptance, meaning that the sport was trying to grow within a society that wasn’t transforming fast enough. Because of that, the ‘Old Era’ of women’s college basketball was defined by its constant struggle to obtain prime-time media attention, in a world where any attention it did get would be consumed by judgement, homophobia, and other forms of hate. Broadcasting companies made decisions that proved to be detrimental to the sport’s growth and potential, as explained in Unrivaled and Sum It Up. This often forced coaches and players to make strategic decisions, for the sole purpose of increasing viewership. Instead of the thrill and skill of the game speaking for itself, attention was brought to the women’s basketball stage through the over-analysis of players’ identities and personal lives. The gender identities, sexualities, and races of players were all among characteristics that were scrutinized as opposed to those players’ skills themselves.
Once players like Caitlin Clark and Paige Bueckers hit the women’s basketball stage, the sport hit what Malcom Gladwell refers to as “The Tipping Point”. This concept basically describes how "thoughts, ideas and behaviours spread like viruses... at a tremendous rate" under certain conditions. Players, media strategies, and growing cultural awareness combined to create the perfect combination of variables. The sport entered mainstream media, signaling the beginning of its increased popularity.
Gladwell’s theory involves the idea of people playing the parts of Connectors, Mavens, and Salesmen. Clark and Bueckers took on these roles for women’s college basketball. As connectors, their rivalries and individual skill helped to turn a diverse fan group into a connected community. Their personalities attracted many people, from casual sports fans to the basketball obsessed. The generated social media attention and headlines made them unavoidable, therefore drawing a larger audience to the sport. In addition to their connections, they also played the role of mavens, or “[people] who possess extensive knowledge and expertise on a particular topic or product, and actively seek to share that information with others.” Their generational skill and talent brought in lots of discussion: fans watched their games, celebrated their records, and invested emotionally in their journeys, transforming what used to be passive viewership into engagement. Finally, as salesmen, their charisma, athletic personalities, and major voices “sold” the sport. Interest in them moved past the court, causing them to become cultural figures whose stories were told widely, converting skeptics into fans.
The three main components of the “Tipping Point” theory are what Gladwell refers to as the “The Law of the Few”, the “Stickiness Factor” and the “Power of Context”, with the last two being the most relevant to the transformation of women’s basketball.. The “Stickiness Factor”, or “the unique quality that causes a phenomenon to stick in people's minds and influence their behaviour,” played an important role in the rapid development of the sport. Moments like Clark’s threes or Bueckers’ clutch plays made games more memorable and resonated with fans emotionally. The two players didn’t just make highlights, but culturally significant events. They were replayed and discussed across media platforms proving just how much the two players affected the game. Bueckers and Clark’s large followings on social media (2.6M and 3.3M on Instagram, respectively, and 3.8M and 702.9K on TikTok, respectively) are prime examples of how big of a role they play in modern media.
The “Power of Context” strongly affected the development of the sport as well. According to Ashley Crossmann of ThoughtCo, it’s “the idea that the environment or circumstances surrounding an idea, trend, or epidemic significantly influence whether it becomes widespread.” Luckily for women’s basketball, the modern cultural environment supported its growth and expansion. Society shifted during the ‘Old Era’, becoming more accepting of women in prominent roles. This ‘New Era’ built on those changes, setting the stage for the sport’s breakthrough, and pushing it over the “tipping point”. This ended up bringing in unprecedented viewership. For example, the 2024 Iowa-UConn Final Four game shattered records, becoming "the most-watched hoops game in ESPN history.” This isn’t just a statistic, but a tool that shows the major transition of the sport from a lesser-known interest to a popular phenomenon.
The ‘New Era’ Media Landscape
This new, modern landscape in the “Post-Caitlin/Paige” era is characterized by bolder marketing, the challenging of stereotypes, and greater acceptance of the athletes’ true identities. A direct challenge to the historical under-recognition of the game came through the ‘Everyone Watches Women’s Sports’ campaign, beginning in late 2023. This was created by TOGETHXR, a company trying to "uplift the next generation of women in sports.” The company was founded by female athletes Alex Morgan, Chloe Kim, Simone Manuel, and Sue Bird, which in turn brings in lots of credibility and authenticity to the opinions they convey. The EWWS campaign in particular targets a large audience. The slogan is declarative and it was put on various types of clothing, signaling their mass-appeal strategy. The message, “Everyone Watches Women’s Sports”, is deliberate and aspirational. This rhetorical choice provokes thought and challenges preexisting viewership assumptions. The shirts were also first made in a simple black and white color scheme, which speaks to the simplicity of the message being sent. There are no designs to draw attention away from the words on the shirt. This could be speaking to the fact that the world needs to be upfront and steadfast when confronting issues like sexism, homophobia, and racism, and that those problems should not be romanticized in the media.
Another example of innovative media campaigns is the “So Win.” Nike campaign, beginning in early 2025. Similar to the EWWS slogan, the simple “You Can’t Win. So Win.” message is not complex at all. The wording is straightforward, easy to understand by the general public, and is often displayed in simple white letters against a black screen. Also, it is important to note that the statement itself is paradoxical, which serves as a direct comparison to the current state of women’s sports media. According to Andrea Paloian of NYU, the “Female Athlete Paradox” “describes the internal conflict faced by women athletes who are expected to both excel in their sport (which often involves strength, power, and athleticism, traits traditionally associated with men) and conform to societal expectations of femininity.” The slogan conveys this implicitly, taking a dig at the doubters of female athletes. The “You Can’t Win.” section acts as a summation of the certain things said about female athletes and their abilities. If this phrase was left alone, it would serve simply as a motivational statement. Something that could be used to convince women, young and old, to beat the gender stereotypes and disprove societal norms. Instead, the slogan answers the question by saying “So Win.” It states that as though it is obvious, something that should already be assumed. The campaign implies that the standard for female athletes should be set higher, that the bar should not be set anything below what doubters think women can’t do. This sort of “underdog” trope is used often in modern women’s sports media as a way of encouraging young women to step out of their comfort zones and take on challenges that society thinks they are unable to face.
The commercials for the “So Win” campaign mostly involved clips of different famous female athletes put together, while being narrated by grammy-winner Doechii. Those advertisements demonstrate unity between women and encapsulate the potential of women’s sports by using prominent figures in the sports and music industries. But Nike also made a commercial starring only one athlete: Paige Bueckers. Bueckers narrates and stars in the entire 14 second video, confronting the constant scrutiny over her off-court life, and daring those who question her methods to realize her dominance in the game. She narrates, “People seem to get upset that I’m everywhere.”, while the video cuts to pictures of her at various different events in the off-season. This directly addresses the claims made about Bueckers when she attended awards shows, fashion week, and other high-profile events. People seemed to think that she was not spending enough time in the gym perfecting her craft, and were expecting her senior season to reflect that. Instead, in a calm and collected manner, Bueckers opposes those views when she states, “That’s funny. I seem to upset them here too.” By saying this, she implies that the doubters were incorrect in their assumptions that her game was going to show the consequences of her off-season “world tour”. She also takes on a confrontational tone, emphasizing her displeasure with the narratives. Bueckers ended up having one of the best seasons in women’s college basketball history, winning the national championship and getting drafted No. 1 in the 2025 WNBA draft (Dallas Wings). Even though some media tried to skew the narrative and write her story for her, she tuned it out and played to her potential, serving as an inspiration for young women and athletes everywhere.
The portrayals of women’s basketball have not always been positive or uplifting, and have definitely not always been consistent. From the scrutinization of the game’s old legends to the more accepting, yet cautionary portrayals of players today, the game has seen its ups and downs. In a world where societal norms are constantly changing, the media has been forced to to the new ways people are looking at things. During a time of minimal cultural awareness about LGBTQ players and severe sexism towards women, the ‘Old Era’ media coverage reflected that. Narratives were pushed that were very far from the truth, and the hate and underappreciation of female athletes was at an all time high. After the introduction of platforms such as Facebook and Instagram, the widespread cultural awareness for the unfair judgements placed on those players started to seep into the media. Headlines changed from things like “Brittney Griner’s deep voice in viral video shocks fans, sparks new wave of gender rumors” to more accepting narratives such as “Brittney Griner’s story always transcended sport. She’s a real American trailblazer”. In a society where hate spreads like wildfire, media networks have become more aware of the messages they are sending. Players have now been granted their rightful freedom to write their own stories and choose the parts of their identities they wish to share. Frontrunners in the sport, like Caitlin Clark and Paige Bueckers, have taken advantage of this freedom and interacted heavily with their fan bases on social media platforms. They’ve drawn attention to their skills and playing styles by posting about their personalities, highlights, and service off the court. The effects are clear: women’s basketball grows when players, like Clark and Bueckers, work hand-in-hand with social media to write their own stories.
As the cultural landscape of the world rapidly develops and society becomes more accepting of diverse personal identities, the media must adapt just as quickly. Narratives are built through headlines and front-page news, meaning that networks must exercise caution and be open-minded when representing figures as historically scrutinized as female athletes.
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thanks so much for reading, pls lmk your thoughts!! :))
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