A player crosses the NCAA logo at midcourt during basketball practice in this March 14, 2012, file photo.
Keith Srakocic/AP
hide caption
toggle caption
Keith Srakocic/AP
A player crosses the NCAA logo at midcourt during basketball practice in this March 14, 2012, file photo.
Keith Srakocic/AP
The NCAA spends more on average on male athletes than on female athletes, especially when it comes to the few championships considered the organization’s most money-generating.
“The mere handful of championships” considered by the university sports regulator as revenue generators are exclusively men’s championships, according to a new report released Tuesday evening by the law firm Kaplan Hecker & Fink.
“This has significant implications for efforts to achieve gender equality between men’s and women’s championships in these sports,” the report said.
The law firm found that the NCAA spent $4,285 on participants in the men’s Division I and national championships, excluding basketball. For female participants, the NCAA spent about $1,700 less during the same 2018-19 season.
The gap is even bigger when it comes to six single-sex sports, like wrestling and beach volleyball. The NCAA spends $2,229 more per student-athlete on men’s championships than on women’s championships.
Kaplan Hecker & Fink was hired earlier this year by the NCAA to investigate disparities between men’s and women’s athletics. The analysis released Tuesday was the second of its kind external analysis of how the NCAA covers men’s and women’s athletics.
The investigations were launched in March after the The NCAA has been criticized for its stark differences between the amenities offered to Division I men’s basketball teams and women’s teams during their championships.
A video shared on TikTok showed minimal equipment in the women’s weight room during their championships. In comparison, the men’s restroom had many more weights and weight racks. The obvious visual differences sparked a barrage of criticism from athletes and college sports officials.
The August review found that the organization has treated women’s games unfairly for years.
The law firm wrote: “This same pressure has led the NCAA to invest more – and in some cases significantly more – in championships that it sees as already or potentially generating revenue, while minimizing expenses for other championships.”
Leaders assure change is on the way
Stanford players, top, and a Utah Valley player warm up before their college basketball game in the first round of the women’s NCAA tournament at the Alamodome in San Antonio, March 21, 2021, photo archive. The NCAA women’s basketball tournament has used March Madness in its marketing and branding this season.
Charlie Riedel/AP
hide caption
toggle caption
Charlie Riedel/AP
Stanford players, top, and a Utah Valley player warm up before their college basketball game in the first round of the women’s NCAA tournament at the Alamodome in San Antonio, March 21, 2021, photo archive. The NCAA women’s basketball tournament has used March Madness in its marketing and branding this season.
Charlie Riedel/AP
As Kaplan Hecker & Fink did this summer, the firm provided the NCAA with several reform ideas in this latest report.
In a press release published Tuesday After reviewing the report, the NCAA Board of Governors reiterated its promise to modify and evaluate the recommendations.
“These changes may require changes to budgets and business models while evaluating the balance between resources devoted to championships that generate revenue and resources to those that do not,” the organization’s leaders said. . The NCAA president was tasked with evaluating the recommendations with other governance groups to identify next steps, the organization said.
Since the release of the August analysis, the NCAA has taken steps to address gender equity issues in basketball. These changes included the use March Madness Marketing in the Division I men’s and women’s basketball championships. The organization said other changes are in the works.
The NCAA views men’s sports as more lucrative, according to the report.
Tuesday’s report noted that the NCAA only considers men’s Division I baseball, men’s basketball, men’s ice hockey, men’s lacrosse and wrestling championships as money generators.
Most of the time, men’s and women’s championships in the same sports are funded equally by the NCAA, the report said. But for sports where one championship is considered more lucrative than its women’s counterpart, “stark differences in spending and personnel emerge, leading to inequitable student-athlete experiences in these championships.”
People watch coverage of the first round of the NCAA college basketball tournament at Westgate Superbook sports book March 15, 2018, in Las Vegas.
John Locher/AP
hide caption
toggle caption
John Locher/AP
People watch coverage of the first round of the NCAA college basketball tournament at Westgate Superbook sports book March 15, 2018, in Las Vegas.
John Locher/AP
At the NCAA Championships in March, the disparities between the men’s and women’s teams went beyond the weight room.
Female basketball players during the event received meal boxes compared to the men’s buffet with steak fillets and lobster mac and cheese. Their gift bags also seemed to be a third the size of the men’s. Officials also revealed that the differences between the men’s and women’s teams even came down to the quality of coronavirus testing offered to athletes during the championship.
“The NCAA’s simultaneous failure to put systems in place to identify, prevent and address gender inequities in its championships has allowed gender disparities in these and other sports to persist for too long,” investigators wrote Tuesday.
Direct comparisons between the men’s and women’s championships could not be made, however, because “the NCAA does not maintain its records of expenses, ticket sales, equipment or other items in a standardized manner that would allow for a such analysis”.
According to the report, a solution to these obvious disparities could be to combine the men’s and women’s athletics championships, as well as improve record-keeping.
When the championships are combined, these events prove more equitable between the two sports. This was due to shared staffing, more coordinated planning and increased equity between goods and services offered to athletes, the analysis found.
The NCAA Board of Governors said Tuesday that it continually considers hosting a joint men’s and women’s Final Fours tournament in the same city from the next application cycle. This could happen in 2027 at the earliest.
Broadcast deals encourage unfair spending
Existing structures created by the NCAA’s contracts with media outlets to stage its events contribute to an uneven playing field between men and women, the report said.
Corporate sponsorship dollars and associated perks, including fan parties and other elements that contribute to the “look and feel” of a championship, are disproportionately spent on men’s championships by compared to women’s championships in the same sport.
A detailed view of the CBS and March Madness logos displayed on a microphone during the NCAA Division I men’s championship second round basketball game March 18, 2018, at Little Caesars Arena in Detroit.
Scott W. Grau/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
hide caption
toggle caption
Scott W. Grau/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
A detailed view of the CBS and March Madness logos displayed on a microphone during the NCAA Division I men’s championship second round basketball game March 18, 2018, at Little Caesars Arena in Detroit.
Scott W. Grau/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
The agreement with the CBS/Turner partnership to broadcast the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, which should last at least until 2032, provides the NCAA with the largest source of revenue. For this year’s March Madness events, CBS/Turner paid a total of $850 million to put on the tournament.
The law firm believes the NCAA is seriously losing out on critical additional revenue that could improve the treatment of female athletes.
For example, ESPN “significantly underpaid” the organization for tournament rights to 29 championships, according to the report. Annual broadcast rights for Division I women’s basketball will be between $81 million and $112 million in 2025, “several times more” than what ESPN currently pays each year to broadcast those 29 championships, including the Division I women’s basketball.
