The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Experts say NCAA tournaments lack equality. Here’s why
The NCAA Tournament bubbles were barely inflated when the uprising began.
On social media, there were side-by-side photos comparing the training centers, gift bags and food provided to the men and women participating in the basketball tournaments. When the NCAA responded that the training center was the result of a space issue, there was quickly a TikTok video from a women’s basketball player — a refute showing an empty room that could be used for weight-training equipment.
That video from Oregon’s Sedona Prince, sent to her TikTok audience before the games even began, has close to 3 million likes and has garnered almost 50,000
comments as of Friday morning.
It also sent the NCAA into crisis mode. So as UConn and 15 other women’s teams were preparing for the Sweet 16 weekend in San Antonio, the NCAA’s stumbling continually diverted focus away from the court.
On Saturday, UConn defeated Iowa 92-72 in a nationally-televised game on ABC that was billed as a marquee showdown between dynamic freshmen Paige Bueckers and Caitlin Clark. And that game was followed by Baylor’s thrilling overtime victory over Michigan, setting up Monday night’s UConn-Baylor matchup with a trip to the Final Four at stake.
These are the kinds of games that can cultivate a new generation of fans.
Yet even as the teams and players composed compelling scripts, the subtext of the tournament has been an issue prevalent in women’s sports at all levels.
“The fact that there’s a huge disparity between men’s and women’s sports is hardly breaking news,” former Notre Dame coach Muffet McGraw tweeted last week.
But it’s apparently news to the NCAA. The college sport governing body was admonished by Congress Wednesday, when 36 lawmakers sent a letter to NCAA president Mark Emmert demanding an explanation for the disparities between the basketball tournaments.
On Thursday, Emmert announced the NCAA would retain a law firm to investigate gender equity issues.
“The NCAA will continue to aggressively address material and impactful differences between the Division I Men’s and Women’s Basketball Championships,” Emmert said in a statement. “While many of the operational issues identified have been resolved, we must continue to make sure we are doing all we can to support gender equity in sports. As part of this effort, we are evaluating the current and previous resource allocation to each championship, so we have a clear understanding of costs, spending and revenue.”
But the announcement came after days of missteps. The NCAA first blamed the weight-training disparity on a lack of space — quickly shot down by Prince — before Emmert said in a talk at the Economic Club of Indiana that the weight rooms shown on social media were never intended to be weight rooms, but “once the video's out there, the video's out there.”
Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday that the NCAA has purposely avoided the use of the term “March Madness” for the women’s tournament while using the branding to build the men’s tournament into an enterprise that generates over $1 billion in revenue.
There are no “March Madness” logos on the courts at women’s game. The March Madness social media accounts only feature the men.
“It looks a little embarrassing on the court when you see ‘Women’s Basketball’ and nothing connected to March Madness,” UConn associate head coach Chris Dailey said earlier this week. “There are women playing, so clearly it’s women’s basketball. I think everyone can get that”
The branding is part of an overall promotion issue. With many media members covering the tournaments remotely, the NCAA is conducting press conference via Zoom and providing photos on its media website.
But there’s a difference. There were men’s photos available for the first two rounds, but no women’s photos to access until the Sweet 16. The men’s press conferences are available via text through a transcription service, but not the women’s interviews.
Subtle things, but they build a broader story. And it’s not a surprise, according to University of Tennessee associate professor Erin Whiteside.
Whiteside, a journalism professor, has studied sports media, culture and gender. Among her takeaways from the NCAA gender disparity issue is that, well, some analysts are surprised.
“One thing I noticed was all these analysts saying, ‘How can this happen in 2021? This is shocking!’ … But it’s not shocking,” Whiteside said. “There’s a lot of this. We have to be really careful that we don’t just run full-steam ahead into the idea that, ‘Hey, women are empowered and we’re in a post-gender landscape.’”
Whiteside points out that there have been immense improvements in how women’s sports are promoted at all levels. Media coverage has improved, especially at the local level. Organizations such as the NCAA have shown more outward support.
“You see, almost what appears to be feminist sentiments in this promo material. Video of really strong and empowered women on the court, and it can feel like feminism in sports has become the norm, that it’s not only acceptable but something that we should be supporting and promoting,” Whiteside said. “There are positives to that, the idea that we should support and empower women in sports. It seems like the right thing to do in 2021.
“But what does that mean? Have we taken a step forward? I think my concern would be that the narrative, the general cultural narrative, has become, ‘Hey, women are empowered in sports and we can do whatever we want in sports and we have the full support of institutions behind us.’ And that’s just not true.
“So the danger is that these feminist narratives can divert our attention from the existing inequity and misogyny in sports. And I think that’s what happened on the Sedona Prince TikTok. She showed us this huge disparity.”
The disparity is fueled by resources. Donna Lopiano, the former head of the Women’s Sports Foundation and a Title IX expert, said the unsaid message from the NCAA has always been the same — women should be happy with what they have.
“But these athletes are speaking up,” Lopiano said.
And coaches. McGraw was just one of the coaches or former coaches to voice an opinion. On Tuesday, Georgia Tech coach Nell Fortner posted a statement on Twitter “thanking” the NCAA.
“Thank you for using the three biggest weeks of your organization's year to expose exactly how you feel about women's basketball — an afterthought,” said Fortner, whose team plays South Carolina in the Sweet 16 Sunday. “Thank you for showing off the disparities between the men's and women's tournament that are on full display in San Antonio … these disparities are just a snapshot of larger, more pervasive issues when it come to women's sports and the NCAA. Shipping in a few racks of weights, after the fact, is not an answer. It's a band-aid and an afterthought.
“Isn't the NCAA a nonprofit, devoted to running championships with student-athletes that must be academically eligible to compete in those championships? In what other non-profit educational endeavor is it acceptable to treat young women as a less valuable financial commodity? At what individual university would it be acceptable to give women inferior text books and cheaper cafeteria food because of their perceived cash value?”
Fortner also addressed the disparity in revenue, an issue often cited for how the sports are administered. The men’s tournament brings in over $1 billion, fueled by the NCAA’s media contract with CBS and Turner. But as the Washington Post reported this week, the women’s tournament — which is broadcast by ESPN and ABC — makes money through media rights and sponsorship deals.
The New York Times reported on Friday that the NCAA budgeted $13.5 million more for the men’s tournament ($28 million) than the women’s championship ($14.5 million) in 2019.