In this study, we explore linguistic constructions of gender in US sports reportage concerning two related basketball altercations: the Pacers–Pistons NBA fight in 2004 and the Shock–Sparks WNBA fight in 2008. We use a combined corpus and qualitative textual analysis to investigate coverage from the days immediately following the fights and to compare that coverage to sports reportage more generally. Our analysis reveals key differences in narrative focus; for example, that NBA coverage is most interested in blame assignation in the isolated event, while WNBA coverage concerns gender and the league writ large. Such patterns, which are realised linguistically in both explicit and implicit ways, contribute to the ‘othering’ of women and women athletes in the increasingly important sports-media-commercial complex.
