« Cinematic Dreaming | Main | [DCIFF] The Hole Story »
March 12, 2006
Bet On It
Interesting Boston Globe article by Laura Pappano on the relationship between coverage of women's collegiate basketball and restrictions on gambling of women's games. To be clear about these things, Pappano interviewed me for the article because of a comment I made in the blog two tournaments ago, and although I wasn't quoted, our discussion was an interesting one. Pappano observes that unlike men's regular season b-ball, "you can't put a dime on the Lady Vols until the post season." She adds that while the connections between sports and gambling may be troubling, sports betting is often accomanied by increased media hype or coverage, with the rise of fantasy sports in the last decade as one significant example.
I'll admit that I'm ambivalent about gambling, not because it affects the "purity" of sports in any way, but because gambling losses often (though not always) affect people who can least afford to incur additional debts. But I think she's absolutely right to note that interest in the NCAA tournament cannot be separated from all of the office and online pools that accompany the tournament. In fact, it was only due to my participation in the pool that I would have known anything about Nevada's backcourt or Gonzaga's bench players (or whatever).
I share Pappano's conviction that the women's tournament can be as exciting as the men's tournament (just ask any Purdue fan in the mid-1990s), so I find her case for encouraging gambling on women's sports an interesting one. Still, I wonder what kind of relationship gambling creates between player and fan. To what extent would gambling encourage the objectification of players or teams? And how might that objectification reinforce the sexism that Pappano seeks to challenge?
Posted by chuck at March 12, 2006 1:02 PM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.wordherders.net/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.fpl/5313