This dissertation examines ESPN's SportsCenter's coverage of the NCAA men's basketball tournament bubble. The dissertation examines the differences in coverage between average teams from the six major NCAA Division I men's basketball conferences and teams from the other 25 conferences. The dissertation examines SportsCenter's coverage from an effects method, questioning whether SportsCenter sets the agenda for other news media in terms of national sports coverage, in this case coverage of the NCAA men's basketball tournament bubble. The dissertation also takes an effects method in terms of framing, examining the narratives SportsCenter uses to describe tournament teams and the attributes that SportsCenter chooses to use depending on the conference affiliation of the team. Finally, the dissertation examines SportsCenter's coverage in terms of political economy, concentrating on ESPN's financial ties to the six major conferences and the importance of maintaining a status quo in terms of promoting the superiority of teams from the six conferences compared to teams from the other conferences. Combining the three approaches provides evidence that SportsCenter does tilt its coverage in favor of teams from the six major conferences in order to promote its financial priorities. SportsCenter works to emphasize a perception of superiority among average teams from the six major conferences in order to ensure that its top teams are easily and often exposed to ESPN's coverage and to maintain consistent ratings.

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無 / The current study is aimed to more closely examine the gendered coverage for basketball in Taiwan’s newspapers. Newspaper coverage of the Jones Cup from 2007-2009 was content analyzed, along with in-depth interviews with the reporters and editors. The results revealed that quantitatively, news coverage on women’s basketball has greatly improved in comparison with data in the past literature. However, qualitatively, the gendered values proved, such as infantilization and sexualization, still exist and are embedded in sports news nowadays. The examples of better the reporting patterns for women’ws basketball were identified with the principle of emphasizing on sports performance. In addition, there are a few consensuses among the interviewees on the challenges and suggestions for women’s basketball in Taiwan, including (1) the current system, (2) marketing and (3) media relations. In short, the purpose of the current study provides and offers practical suggestions of how to fairly report women basketball games and other women sports.

The growing commercialism within Division I big-time athletics has raised the financial stakes for universities, as successful athletic programs benefit from increased opportunities for financial gain. This has contributed to a pervasive "win culture" that drives institutions to seek competitive advantages, and as a side effect, NCAA rule violations have become incentivized. Programs whose infractions go unnoticed may benefit from the competitive advantage gained, but for programs investigated by the NCAA, the financial penalties incurred may far outweigh the potential revenues from undetected violations. The purpose of this study was to address institutional self-sanctions as an organizational behavior in response to NCAA major infractions and the impact of self-sanctioning on alumni charitable giving. Through the use of neo-institutional and resource dependence theories, this study aimed to further examine the role of institutional self-sanctions as a crisis management strategy in containing financial fallout of athletic scandal. While researchers have addressed scandal and alumni charitable giving in relation to athletics and institutional self-sanctions, respectively, no research exists linking the two bodies of literature. This study employed a two-way fixed effects analysis of 10 years of panel data to address the effect of key variables on alumni charitable giving. Analysis results indicated no significant relationship between institutional self-sanctions and alumni charitable giving. However, alumni charitable giving was mitigated by institutional endowment per FTE, suggesting that larger scale financial structures of an institution serve as the best predictor for alumni charitable giving during athletic scandal.