The UNC-Duke rivalry is arguably the most iconic in all of sports. There's a buzz in the air the week leading up to a men's basketball game between the two. You can't sit on Polk Place without being asked by an interviewer to describe Duke basketball in one word. You can't step onto Franklin Street without seeing signs decorated for the occasion. You can't scroll through Instagram without seeing stories proclaiming that Carolina Blue is the best blue. You can't walk through campus without escaping rivalry week.
On the day of the game, home or away, music from darties fills the air, students get decked out in UNC merch, watch parties are held for those without tickets and, if all goes well, we rush Franklin.
UNC as a community pours everything possible into preparing for, watching and celebrating a UNC-Duke men's basketball game. What we don't do is extend this love, support and dedication to our women’s team.
The women's basketball team played Duke in early January this year. Before the game, that buzz was totally absent. There was no flood of Carolina Blue on social media, no interviews on the Quad and, apart from Carolina Fever signs around campus promising free hats, practically no talk about the upcoming matchup.
The women's team upset Duke 53-46 in overtime in that game, a far more competitive effort than the 17-point blowout that was the men's loss. The women's win was largely overlooked compared to last year's reaction to the win over Duke on the men's side. Franklin continued to operate as usual and there was little social attention on the victory. What's more? The women’s team is ranked in the top 10 ahead of the second Duke game on Thursday, while the men's team has struggled to remain a bubble team.
More than just having a real chance to win the game, we rave about how much fun rivalry week is. We thrive on the feud. Why wouldn't we want to get to experience that four times a season instead of two?
Admittedly, a lot of problems that hinder equal social attention on the men's and women's basketball teams stem from institutional barriers. The women's UNC-Duke game earlier this semester was on a Thursday night, whereas the men's was on a Saturday. Students can't spend the day partying on a weekday and are less likely to spend the night at a basketball game when they have an 8 a.m. class the next day. The timeline for a week of preparation doesn't run as smoothly when the game falls in the middle of the week.
While, individually, we can't do much about unequal scheduling — not to mention inequities in media coverage or facilities — we can change the way that we interact with women's basketball on a social level. As sports fans, we have the power and responsibility to provoke a shift.
The sports world is moving toward equality in lots of ways. Equal pay, female coaches and well-known female athletes are more common. Moments like this, where male sports are given more societal attention than female sports, are salient reminders of the road left to travel. Of course, there's historical reason to support the men's team: they've won more national championships, produced Michael Jordan and simply existed as male athletes in a time when the patriarchy openly drove the sports world.
