Study: Athlete abuse spikes at March Madness, targets women

David Purdum and Swetha Surendran, ESPN

The abuse college athletes face on social media, including threats of violence, spikes during March Madness, with women basketball players targeted three times more often than men, according to a study the NCAA released Thursday.

Eight out of 10 abusive posts sent to college athletes on social media occurred during the NCAA tournament, the study found. One athlete received more than 1,400 abusive messages over two weeks.

Overall, 6% of abusive posts flagged during the study were violent, and 96 social media accounts were referred to the NCAA and law enforcement for further investigation. One example the NCAA included read, “Im gonna wait for you outside the arena to beat the f— out of your knees with a spiked baseball bat.”

“I was shocked by the volume in addition to the profanity that was being directed at the kids,” NCAA president Charlie Baker told ESPN.

“It is just vile, nasty and brutal and, in some cases, seriously threatening. I think it’s incumbent on us to raise the concern.”

The NCAA partnered with data science company Signify Group, which analyzed accounts on X, Instagram, TikTok and Facebook for more than 3,000 college athletes, approximately 500 coaches, 200 event officials and 165 teams during the 2024 College Football Playoff, men’s and women’s basketball tournaments, men’s and women’s College World Series, and women’s volleyball and gymnastics championships.

The NCAA emphasized that the analysis covered only public-facing threats, not private messages, where, according to Signify executives, harassment is likely worse.

The analysis identified nearly 4,000 abusive messages during March Madness, which Signify examined starting in the second round. By contrast, a three-week tennis Grand Slam would be expected to generate 1,000 to 2,000 abusive posts for women’s and men’s players combined, according to the study.

“You need to put yourself in the seat of the athlete receiving these messages to really get the feel of what it means,” Signify co-founder and CEO Jonathan Hirshler told ESPN. “Having death threats and accusations thrown at you is both off-putting and … quite scary.”

Of the 16 types of abuse the study identified, sexual abuse directed at men’s and women’s athletes was most prevalent, at 18%. In women’s gymnastics, 92% of sexual messages came from bot accounts encouraging users to access sexual content, the report found. Once Signify reported the activity, the platform suspended the bots. Other common forms of harassment listed included sexist abuse, racism, and homophobia and transphobia.

ESPN reported Tuesday that abuse by “angry sports bettors” is an increasing type of harassment. The prevalence of sports betting messages marks a change from past Signify studies, according to Hirshler.

“When we started doing this work about four or five years ago, we were predominantly dealing with a lot of racist issues,” Hirshler told ESPN. “It just goes to show that [betting] has moved into a very significant area of the work that we do, in terms of the volume of abuse that’s triggered by angry gamblers, sports betting and match-fixing.”

Rest is here…