Bet on It

We have a sports gambling problem in this country: Compelling NCAA women's Division I basketball teams aren't attracting the bets -- or public attention -- they deserve. That's right. We need to open our wallets and purses and put down dollars on our favorites -- Tennessee, UConn, Duke, Rutgers, BC. Before the Women's Final Four comes to Boston next month, we must plot from workplace cubicles to organize March Madness pools using women's, not just men's, brackets.

Certainly, noble forces want to rid sports of gambling. It may be wrong to bet on athletics. But it feels more wrong that one can go to several quasi-legal online casinos on a Friday night and wager on any of 113 regular-season men's college games, but you can't put a dime on the Lady Vols until the post season.

There is a natural, if troubling, relationship between wagers on sports and the coverage of those sports. News outlets may relish reporting on the NHL gambling scandal or the guy who staged his own disappearance after losing $40,000 on a Super Bowl bet, but they are part of the gambling equation.

"There is a symbiotic relationship between sports gambling and television, media hype, and presentation," says Robert Futrell, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas. Futrell argues broadcasters "know sports gambling is crucial" to ratings, particularly when contests are blowouts and few would watch if they didn't have money on the game. Likewise, notes Futrell, even as sports leagues criticize gambling, they are affiliated with Internet and broadcast companies "that give exactly the type of information that sports bettors -- and only sports bettors -- require."

Bettors crave information, and the media win in providing it, even as they well know how their reports are used. Consider websites like covers.usatoday.com, touted as "the most comprehensive odds and game matchups site on the Web," providing "the latest lines, updated every two minutes throughout the day." Surely, fans don't need new assessments every two minutes. The site posts injury reports for pro sports and NCAA basketball -- but men's only. Who must know Villanova's Curtis Sumpter is out with a knee injury? His mom is probably well aware.

Thank gamblers for raising the profile of men's college basketball. Rob Stillwell, spokesman for Boyd Gaming, owner of StarDust Resort and Casino in Las Vegas, known for its sports book, says the operation offers betting on every men's NCAA game but only selected women's NCAA tournament games. Why? "The women's basketball is secondary to the men's from just a sheer audience perspective," he says.

One may wonder: Who cares if women's play is second to men's?

It's about more than bringing prominence to female athletes who might be role models for my basketball-playing 11-year-old daughter. I have no illusions she will ever dunk like Candace Parker. It's not in her genes, I promise. Rather, this is about women's social, political, and economic status. It might have been effective decades ago to argue that females weren't worth first-line attention. Women had long been brainwashed into believing competition was unladylike, on or off the field. But today's female athletes are a new breed and every bit as compelling as today's male athletes. Failure to give them equal airtime, ink, and analysis is bald sex bias that merely reinforces outdated beliefs about male superiority.

Sports matter in our society. Women must be equal players and not handicapped by false notions that their play doesn't merit the same coverage as men's. Anyone who has watched golf on TV knows that it is packaging by the broadcasters - and not the image of a tiny dimpled white ball on a green - that keeps us glued.

Don't say women's college basketball isn't as exciting as men's. Last year's NCAA playoffs featured games in which favorites LSU and Tennessee were beaten by Baylor and Michigan State in thrilling come-from-behind wins. Does one need any more incentive to challenge sexism and start a March Madness women's hoops pool? The goal here is not beating out or pushing aside the men, but sharing the stage -- and sharing the status and power. We might be waiting a long time if we let media dictate which sports matter and which don't. Unless, of course, we all call our bookies.

Laura Poppano, a Newton-based writer, is coauthor of the forthcoming Playing With Boys: Separate Is Not Equal in Sports. Send e-mail to magazine@globe.com.