New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
UConn’s Auriemma challenges the NCAA on inequity matters
It’s been a year since a social media post from Oregon player Sedona Prince perhaps forever changed the NCAA tournament.
Prince posted a video highlighting the disparity between weight rooms: the men had a full-sized gym, while the women had a handful of dumbbells to work with.
That video, along with other social media posts showing discrepancies in how the NCAA handled the men’s and women’s teams, not only generated a conversation about inequities but also brought resulted in scathing report criticizing the NCAA.
The NCAA has worked to implement a number of changes from expanding the field of the tournament to 68 to using the “March Madness” brand to promote the women’s tournament, including on the court. The weight rooms, food options, and swag bags for female student-athletes have been expanded.
But do those changes do enough? UConn coach Geno Auriemma, who has been part of every NCAA tournament since 1989, said the focus may be on the wrong things.
“Me personally, I’ve had a great experience,” Auriemma said on a media conference call Tuesday. “My players have had a great experience every Final Four that we’ve ever been to. But you know, we talk about the dumbest things. We’ve got the weight room situation squared away. Wow. My kids haven’t touched a weight (in the NCAA tournament) in 21 years. We’ve got the swag bag taken care of. That’s terrific.”
“You know what we didn’t take care of ?” Auriemma continued. “Two teams played (Monday night) to go to the Final Four, and now we play Friday, and we fly out (Tuesday). The (men) fin
ished Sunday, and they get Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and then they play Saturday. Why don’t you address things that actually help kids get ready to play their best basketball at the most important time of the year? But we’ve got the weight room squared away, and I’m sure we got other things squared away, but we don’t get squared away the things that are most important.”
Among the other items the inequity report recommended was playing the Final Four at the same site. While it’s been discussed, it’s not something that’s been implemented. Auriemma said he hopes it stays that way.
“So every coach that I’ve talked to that’s participated in the Final Four, and I’ve talked to quite a few after the report came out, not a one said we should have both Final Fours at the same place,” he said. “So it’s easy for somebody that hasn’t been there or someone who’s involved in women’s basketball but doesn’t coach and doesn’t play to say, yeah, this would be a great idea, let’s do that. But if you’ve been there, if you’ve been a part of it and you know what the pitfalls are if you combine these two things, you would never say let’s do that.”
The Kaplan report also recommended the NCAA revisit its media rights deals. The men’s tournament generated nearly
$900 million in revenue for the organization through a deal with CBS and Turner the year before the pandemic began. The NCAA tournament on the women’s side is part of a much smaller $34 million per year deal as part of an NCAA deal with ESPN. The report assessed the women’s
tournament as being worth $81 million, and $112 million beginning in 2025.
“I know that there’s people even in my own league that are staunch advocates of doing it,” Auriemma said about the possibility of combining the Final
Four sites for the men and women. “I mean, you have a right to believe whatever you want to believe. But you can’t say in that report women want to see what their value is on their own. OK, we want our own TV rights, we want our own way to promote and market and do all that, which I think is fabulous. It’s about time. And then say, you know what, we really need to be where the men are because that helps us.”
Auriemma, however, applauded the use of social media by athletes to help grow not only the sport but also their own brands.
“I think women’s basketball players have traditionally had to work exceptionally hard to be accepted into the highest levels of sports, and I think social media has helped grow their profile, the players individually, and by association, I think the teams that they play for,” Auriemma said.
The exposure helped lead to strong TV ratings Monday night in UConn’s Elite Eight win over North Carolina State. It was the fifth-largest audience ever for the women’s tournament outside of the Final Four, according to Sports Media Watch. The game averaged 2.04 million viewers — the highest for a round prior to the Final Four since UConn’s 2006 Elite Eight game against Duke.
“I think the exposure that they’ve gotten on social media has been, I think, incredibly significant,” he said. “You see the ratings, you see the popularity of the game. Even though some of the crowds over the weekend weren’t as good as you’d like them to be, I think the excitement surrounding the tournament is as great as it’s ever been.”