Study: Athlete abuse spikes at March Madness, targets women

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."

Eighteen of the 38 states that offer legal sports betting, as well as the District of Columbia, prohibit licensed sportsbooks from offering college prop bets, a ban the NCAA supports. Sportsbooks and industry advocates have argued that legalization allows for better regulation, but Baker believes legalization has encouraged more people to participate.

"The numbers of people involved in this have skyrocketed once it became legal," he said.

Baker is especially concerned about the impact of prop betting on individual players' statistics.

"I despise the idea that we put these kids in the position where people would expect their individual performance to be more important than the performance of their team," he said. 

Patrick Chester, who advises NCAA schools on gambling issues, said athletes are increasingly asking how to deal with bettors requesting money. Chester said athletes have told him they have received requests for money from fellow students and even family members who had gambled on their games.

"It started off with mainly online abuse and general threats," Chester, a senior director for international advocacy group EPIC Global Solutions, told ESPN. "But something has happened in the last couple years, where asking for reimbursement has become more prevalent. In their mind, they're owed something."

Denver Broncos rookie quarterback Bo Nix, PGA golfers Max Homa and Joel Dahmen, Auburn quarterback Payton Thorne, and Chicago Bulls player Nikola Vucevic are among the athletes who have said publicly that they received requests for money from bettors on the payment app Venmo. A spokesperson for Venmo acknowledged that the company is aware of such requests and said in a statement to ESPN that users are "prohibited from acting in a manner that could be considered harassment as outlined in our user agreement."

Connor McCaffery, a men's basketball assistant coach at Butler who played at Iowa and is dating Indiana Fever superstar Caitlin Clark, said in a news release that he has experienced this type of abuse himself and seen its impact on loved ones. "There must be more done to address this toxic behavior impacting sports at all levels," he said.

The 20-page analysis lists examples of abusive messages but blurs out the senders' handles. When asked why Signify chose not to reveal their identities, Hirshler told ESPN that data privacy was one of several reasons.

"Unfortunately some of the people who are doing this see it as a badge of honor," he said. "And so they want the reaction of having their account highlighted. So part of it is also taking away that agency from them in terms of giving them the satisfaction of knowing that they've had an impact on the person."

Baker said the NCAA is talking with sportsbooks about limiting individual prop bets on college athletes and is working toward other solutions.

"I think it's important for all of us to work together to try to find ways to mitigate this," he said. "I'm not naive enough to think we're going to make this all go away, but I think we should be willing to work together to come up with ways to help."