From Henley to Thames: institutional entrepreneurship and the Oxford-Cambridge women's boat race

The integration of the Oxford-Cambridge women’s boat race onto the tideway was hailed as a landmark moment for gender equality in sport. This research investigates how that transformation unfolded across media narratives, athlete experiences, and institutional processes. Through three interconnected qualitative studies, this thesis presents a comprehensive, multi-faceted account of the factors that shaped this landmark event and how gendered change materialises within a tradition-bound sporting institutions.Study 1 explores how the Women's Boat Race was framed in UK print and online media between 2011 and 2015. Using a structured media framing approach informed by Linstrom and Marais (2012), with interpretive emphasis on Entman’s (1993) conceptualisation of framing devices, the study analyses 177 mainstream news articles to identify dominant frames: economic, progress, powerlessness, tradition, and human impact. These frames revealed inherent tensions between celebration and marginalisation, exposing how media narratives simultaneously elevated the women’s race as a symbol of progress while reinforcing gendered hierarchies. By tracing evolving portrayals of athletes, sponsorship, and tradition, the study demonstrates the critical role of media in shaping public discourse around gender equality in elite sport.Study 2 shifts focus to the lived experiences of ten female athletes from the Oxford and Cambridge Women’s Boat Clubs who competed in the Boat Race between 2011 and 2024. Employing narrative inquiry and a metaphorical structure inspired by the Tideway course, this study examines how rowers navigated identity, resilience, and institutional constraints. Findings highlight the physical, emotional, and logistical challenges female rowers faced, including inadequate facilities, marginal funding, and symbolic exclusions, despite outward progress.Study 3 examines the institutional dynamics that enabled the 2015 integration of the Women's Boat Race. Using semi-structured interviews with ten stakeholders, including sponsors, organisers, coaches, and board members, and grounded in institutional work and institutional entrepreneurship, this study analyses how field-level conditions (such as legitimacy threats and resource disparities) intersected with actor-led strategies. Key findings show that external sponsorship, particularly through Newton Investment Management and the leadership of Helena Morrissey, as an institutional entrepreneur, helped reshape institutional arrangements to facilitate the amalgamation of the Women’s Boat Race into the Boat Races. However, the study also reveals the partial nature of the transformation, with symbolic inclusion not always matched by deeper structural or cultural change. Themes such as legitimacy pressure, sponsorship as a catalyst for reform, media framing as institutional work, and the persistence of traditional hierarchies illustrate the complex and negotiated nature of gender equality in legacy sporting events.Collectively, these three studies offer a multi-dimensional account of how media, lived, and institutional processes emerged to reshape the status of women’s rowing within a historically exclusive tradition. The thesis makes theoretical contributions to sport sociology, media studies, and institutional theory, showing how gender reform in sport materialises not as linear progress but through tension, advocacy, and negotiation. While the 2015 Tideway debut was a pivotal step, findings across the three studies emphasise that lasting equality necessitates deeper structural embedding, continuous cultural change, and a sustained commitment to visibility and support for female athletes.