Women's hoops tourney media coverage criticized

By ANN TATKO
Collegian Sports Writer

The highlights from the Penn State-North Carolina State women's basketball game on Sunday could fill an entire page.

They included a 17-point run by the Lady Lions, a layup by Penn State to tie the game with 8.6 seconds remaining and another layup, this time by the Wolfpack, at the 2.3 mark, which gave them a 76-74 upset win in the second-round of the NCAA tournament.

Yet, for all the highlight moments in Sunday's game, ESPN's "SportsCenter" opted to show none of them. Instead, the recap consisted of a displayed final score, with the announcer's voice overlayed, for a 30 second spot on all of the women's tournament games.

On the other hand, coverage of the men's tournament consisted of highlights from four games, including clips from the coaches' post-game interviews.

Curt Pires, a publicist at ESPN, said the amount of airtime for the college basketball games was determined based on expected viewer interest.

"The men's tournament games (Sunday) were pretty much more important," he said. "Michael Jordan's return to the NBA and some of the buzzer-beater men's games were one and two for the show in terms of importance."

Despite the magnitude of its tournament games, women's college basketball has continued to receive a disproportionate amount of media coverage compared to its male counterpart.

In fact, women's basketball arguably had one of the most down-to-the-wire, intense games so far in the tournament. On Saturday night, Alabama and Duke took their second-round game into four overtimes before the Crimson Tide finally pulled out a 121-120 win.

Although Pire said games like that are interesting and a sign of growth for the sport, programming on "SportsCenter" is still dictated by audience interest.

"It's like a cat and mouse game," Pire said. "The argument is, how do you expect a sport to grow if it's not given the opportunity? While we understand that, we also have to cover sports that our viewers ask for."

After Sunday's game, Penn State Coach Rene Portland said the 5,578 people who watched the game indicate that the fan interest is there -- and now the media must respond.

"I'm looking at you to say, 'Maybe I'll cover this a little bit better because there were 5,500 people who really cared about what happened out there,' " Portland said.

Fan interest is reflected in those spectators who traveled to see the game and in the fact that the women's Final Four has sold out this year, she added.

"To be honest, the problem with our sport I think is sitting in this room with an attitude sometimes," she said during the postgame press conference on Sunday.

She added that reporters should question why they are not covering the sport because her team and others in women's basketball have given them reasons to cover it. "That's what we did today," Portland said, "because you were sitting right there watching the game and it didn't make any difference if it was boys or girls down there."

Lori Shontz, a reporter who covers Penn State sports for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, said she thought Portland was off-base in terms of the local media coverage and was directing her criticism at the wrong people.

"I think she was preaching to the choir," Shontz said, because often the reporters do not control decisions made by editors.

For a media outlet, it is also expensive to regularly cover a team because of travel costs, Shontz added. The Post-Gazette made that commitment this season by assigning her to cover both Penn State basketball teams.

The Centre Daily Times has made a similar commitment to reporting home and away games for the Lady Lions. During the 1990-1991 season, the newspaper switched from covering the team through a correspondent to having a full-time writer handle the responsibilities.

Dwight Kier, the sports editor who covers the Lady Lions, said the commitment requires time, resources and money, which some newspapers are not willing to give.

"I've been to places where the local papers don't even cover games at home," he said. "In a sense, we're ahead of the curve nationally for covering women's basketball, and we're proud of that . . . Why others haven't made the same commitment -- I don't have a good insight into that because they're on the opposite side of the fence from where we are."

Kier added that one reason why the Centre Daily Times emphasizes women's basketball coverage is community interest.

That same reason explains why the Harrisburg Patriot-News does not cover the Lady Lions' entire season, said sports editor Nick Horvath.

"We never fail to cover the Lady Lions' postseason, especially if they're at home, because that's important to our readers," he added. "In terms of promoting the product, that's up to Rene Portland. We don't even promote Harrisburg sports because that's not what the newspaper business is about."

Collegian sports writer Naina Narayana contributed to this report.