THE NCAA budgeted nearly twice as much for its men’s basketball tournament in 2019 as it had budgeted for its women’s competition, a $13.5 million gap that is sure to raise questions about the organization’s commitment to favoring gender equality.
Tournaments vary widely in their formats and popularity, and NCAA executives insist those differences necessarily explain their budget decisions. But a financial summary prepared by the association, which included numbers that some longtime college sports executives said they had never seen, showed that the NCAA devoted far more resources to its hugely profitable men’s tournament.
The NCAA’s treatment of women’s basketball has long frustrated players and coaches, who see it as a juggernaut that has done little to promote the women’s game and starved it of resources. as the trademark March Madnesswhich they believed would increase the visibility of the sport.
Some issues with women’s basketball sparked a public furor last week, when players and coaches at this year’s women’s tournament posted photos and videos of training areas which were much rarer than the well-provided facilities for the men’s competition.
The NCAA said budgets for 2021 basketball tournaments were similar to previous years and reflected the demands of hosting major events, but did not provide exact numbers. Yet until Friday, the financial details of past NCAA tournaments were largely shrouded in mystery.
According to the summary reviewed by the New York Times, the association has budgeted $28 million for the 2019 men’s basketball championship, a 68-team, 67-game tournament played in major cities across the country. The NCAA has budgeted $14.5 million for the women’s championship, a 63-game competition also held across the country. Most of the women’s tournament matches were held on campus; the men’s tournament matches were not.
The NCAA said the design of its women’s tournament, which involves far less travel in the first and second rounds because games are played on campus, was responsible for a $4.4 million budget difference with the men’s tournament.
The association also said the cost of hosting the men’s tournament playoff matches was $1.1 million – the women’s tournament has none – and that it was paying about $1.6 million dollars per year to prepare a football stadium to host the men’s Final Four.
The women’s Final Four, which is played in smaller venues, does not require as much construction cost.
In an interview Friday, Kathleen McNeely, the NCAA’s chief financial officer, said organizers are “really striving to have parity” between the men’s and women’s tournaments, particularly when it comes to the student-athlete experience. But she added that public interest in the men’s competition had fueled more ticket sales and necessitated more spending to accommodate fans.
“The men’s tournament is just a bigger tournament: 690,000 fans compared to 275,000 in 2019,” she said. “That kind of difference is going to result in a lot of small costs that are going to make a difference.”
Amy Privette Perko, a four-year starter in women’s basketball at Wake Forest and now executive director of the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics, described the disparities between the tournaments as “incredibly disappointing on many levels.”
“It’s a question of fairness,” she said. “The NCAA aims to be a unifying organization for its schools to provide educational opportunities through sports. One of its core principles is to conduct its business “without gender bias,” and in this case, it seems clear that the NCAA has failed to meet its own standards.
In Texas, where the women’s tournament is being held, Georgia Tech women’s basketball coach Nell Fortner said Friday the budget data was “discouraging to hear.”
Fortner is among the coaches who have criticized the NCAA for his management of this year’s tournaments. The NCAA apologized for some disparities between competitions – it also acknowledged differences in coronavirus testing protocols, which it insisted local health officials had approved – and made quick changes to improve training options.
The NCAA announced Thursday that it had hired Roberta A. Kaplan, a prominent civil rights attorney, to conduct a review of its championships. Kaplan is expected to release a report this summer, and Mark Emmert, the NCAA president, said officials will “evaluate the current and previous allocation of resources to each championship.”
Gloria Nevarez, the commissioner of the West Coast Conference, said she understands the financial demands of hosting large events, but she also said the NCAA has been “long overdue for a holistic view” of spending on its championships.
“A lot of our campuses and conferences operate by providing equity and really have that in mind,” said Nevarez, whose league includes Brigham Young and Gonzaga. “I hope the NCAA reflects these operations.”
Although the NCAA is a nonprofit organization whose leaders regularly cite “public trust” in college sports, the association is not subject to open records laws, as are many of its member schools , and its finances are often opaque, even to many conference commissioners. and sports directors. The NCAA publishes audited financial statements each year, with revenues and expenses categorized by broad categories, and its tax return is eventually made public.
The NCAA has not provided specific financial documents to support the claims made in the championship financial summary it prepared.
In audited states, the NCAA reported more than $1.1 billion in revenue for its 2019 fiscal year, the last budget cycle before the pandemic took hold. That year, the NCAA reported spending nearly $154 million on “Division I championships, programs and NIT tournaments.”
The NCAA says only five of the 90 championships it runs in its three divisions are profitable: Division I baseball, men’s basketball, men’s ice hockey, men’s lacrosse and wrestling. (The NCAA does not control the College Football Playoff, which generates hundreds of millions of dollars annually.)
But the men’s basketball tournament is the undisputed crown jewel, with a television deal with CBS and Turner Sports serving as the financial lifeblood of the NCAA as a whole.
The deal, reached in 2010 and extended in 2016, is worth $19.6 billion and expires in 2032. At the time, the extension was hailed as providing the NCAA with long-term revenue and certainty in terms of costs, but as the the value of sports rights has been maintained grow over the ensuing years, the wisdom of this decision has been questioned.
The TV deal that includes the women’s basketball tournament is far less lucrative. Under the agreement, ESPN pays the NCAA $500 million annually over 14 years for 24 Division I championships, including the women’s basketball tournament, as well as certain additional rights.
McNeely said a third-party consulting firm hired by the NCAA allocated 15.9 percent of the value of the ESPN contract to the women’s basketball tournament.
In total, the NCAA said the men’s tournament generated net revenue of about $865 million in 2019, while the women’s tournament lost $2.8 million, more than any other NCAA championship.
Long before the unrest surrounding this year’s women’s tournament, the association was under severe financial and political pressure.
The pandemic prompted the association to cancel its basketball tournaments and other championships last year. In January, the NCAA reported that its revenues had fallen by around $600 million – even after receiving $270 million in insurance payouts linked to the pandemic and the men’s tournament – and that it had recorded a loss of almost $56 million.
Gillian R. Brassil And Kevin Draper reports contributed.
