A Closer Look at NCAA Websites

University athletic departments routinely utilize their websites as a medium to communicate and promote their sports teams however; the methods used to promote and cover each sport often differ. This article focused on whether athletic department websites were over or underrepresenting specific sports in terms of multimedia and promotional coverage with comparison to team participation levels and revenue generation. The authors assessed 20 different Division I universities and analyzed team websites for 18 sports. The results of the study revealed that advertisement coverage was below the expected value based on participation rates. It also showed that multimedia coverage and gross revenue differences were significant between the teams that were producing higher gross revenue rates compared with those generating lower gross revenue rates. Athletic departments now face the challenge of weighing equity issues with financial considerations. This research could be valuable for institutions because there is a potential for untapped financial resources if they can equalize coverage across revenue and non-revenue sports teams.