Compare/Contrast
One of the greatest concerns in research based on gender coverage is the limited coverage of women sports by different media; for example, the social media, digital media, and the newspapers (print media). Accordingly, the quality of sports coverage despite the remarkable participation of the female gender intensifies the support for men's sports while diminishing the women's sports. Basketball is one of the favourite games, not among the American people but also among other people worldwide. The two common premier basketball leagues in the world are the NBA and WNBA. This paper discusses the similarities and differences between coverage of the NBA and WNBA on social, print, and digital media.
The NBA is one of the popular basketball leagues, perhaps the oldest founded in 1946 (Kumar 1). The National Basketball Association encompasses thirty North American teams and boasts of being among the main professional leagues. The other main leagues that join the NBA at the top of the chart are the WNBA (Women National Basketball Association), the MLB (Major League Baseball), the NHL (National Hockey League), and the NFL (National Football League). The competitive games in the NBA commence in April with both the Eastern and Western conferences having eight teams each. Every team plays their seven counterparts and the teams that win four games progress to the subsequent rounds. Only two teams are eligible to participate in the final of the championship.
The Women National Basketball Association (WNBA)
The WNBA is the counterpart of the NBA in the basketball leagues. Accordingly, the WNBA started on 1996. However, competitive games commenced the following year (Kumar 1). The WNBA began with eight teams that participated against each other in the top league. The first round of the competition comprised of every team playing two head-to-head matches in their specific conferences. The WNBA is a three-elimination competition with only two teams making it to the final of the contest. Although there are many other women basketball teams, only the WNBA has the NBA's support and backing.
NBA and WNBA Coverage on Social Media
According to the statistics obtained from sports coverage by TV news in 2009, men's football, basketball, and baseball proved to the most common sports according to media coverage. Conversely, women's basketball occupies a significantly small percentage commissioner of the NBA shows support for equal social media representation of both the NBA and the WNBA by allocating them equal rights to media representation compared to men's basketball. The WNBA and NBA prove to be the only professional leagues that support gender and racial equality. According to the results released by the American Enterprise Institute, the media representation of NBA is 77.7% compared to the WNBA's 22.2% (Hoff 1). Some of the televisions broadcasting stations that show tremendous coverage of the NBA and WNBA are the NBA, ESPN, and The Lifetime.
NBA and WNBA Coverage on Print Media
According to various newspaper franchises such as the Miami Herald and the Orlando Sentinel, there is a significant huge representation of the NBA news and highlights compared to the WNBA. Research shows that the limited coverage of the WNBA and other women league highlights is because the majority of the newscasters argue that most of the coverage of the women leagues are not newsworthy. Furthermore, where coverage occurs on the newspapers, the space allocated is minimal compared to the area assigned to the NBA news and highlights. Moreover, other foreign newspapers magazines seem to show support for the NBA and WNBA, for example, the Superbasket Italian magazine, the Five magazines of Germany, and the Basketball News newspaper of China. Among the publications devoted to coverage of NBA and WNBA news are the Basketball Times that majorly focuses of the NBA, the Dime that concentrates on the NBA and the WNBA, and the Slam for the NBA.
NBA and WNBA Coverage on Digital Media and Websites
Sports news globally has different ways of representation ranging from the coverage on television and social media to websites and blogs (Duru 580). Several websites major on basketball news either the NBA news coverage or both the NBA and the WNBA. However, since the WNBA is less common compared to the NBA, their coverage is minimal. The largest sections of these websites and blogs cover the NBA news and updates on NBA players. Accordingly, the WNBA needs more advertising and marketing strategies to boost their representation. The sites that update people in the United States and the rest of the world about basketball news include the star.com, w3 newspapers online and nba.com.
Conclusion
Research on gender-based sports representation shows that men's sports boast of greater representation on social, print media, and digital media than women's sports. The differences between media representation of NBA and WNBA news reveals this variance. Most of the press platforms seem to show more support for the NBA than the WNBA. However, several strategies are underway to improve women sports representation in the media. Despite the efforts to improve WNBA representation in the media, most of the space for coverage favours the NBA and other men leagues.
Works Cited
Kumar, Manisha. "Difference Between WNBA and NBA". DifferenceBetween.net, (2010):1. Web. 24 Apr. 2016.
Hoff, Christina. "Take Back The Sports Page?" American Enterprise Institute, (2010):1. Web. 24 Apr. 2016.
Duru, N. Jeremi. "Hoop Dreams Deferred: The Wnba, The Nba, And The Long-Standing Gender Inequity At The Game's Highest Level." Utah Law Review 2015.3 (2015): 559-603. Academic Search Premier. Web. 24 Apr. 2016.
