MAAC asks for equity review
Tournaments exposed inequality between men’s, women’s teams
As a member of the NCAA women’s basketball oversight committee, Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference commissioner Rich Ensor said he was already aware of “simmering ” issues of inequity between the NCAA men’s and women’s basketball tournaments.
Those issues were exposed to the nation when women’s players and strength coaches at the tournament in San Antonio posted photographs that went viral of their weight rooms that were vastly inferior to those the men used in Indianapolis.
The criticism extended to the meals offered the women’s players, the NCAA branding on the court and even the quality of the COVID -19 testing.
“It’s hard for the women players not to feel somewhat second-class,” Ensor said.
With input from Ensor, the MAAC presidents submitted a request on Tuesday to the NCAA that it support an independent review of “inequitable treatment” of women’s basketball by the NCAA.
“We think all the conferences should be weighing in,” Ensor said. “It’s a basic equity issue, one that’s been simmering for some time, but came to the forefront with the issues relative to the operation of the men’s and women’s tournament. When you do the side-by-side analysis, you could see a lot of flaws of how one was being handled vs. the other.”
Siena president Chris Gibson, a former U.S. Representative, said the MAAC presidents want the NCAA to live up to its words.
“Among the reasons why is, the NCAA publicly commits to gender-equity principles enshrined in Title IX,” Gibson said. “These are professed core values. They’re fundamental principles. But video doesn’t equal audio. You say one thing and you do another, it’s unacceptable.”
Gibson said the MAAC wants an independent commission with the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association involved in it. The MAAC is also supporting the WBCA’S request for an independent Commission on Gender Inequity in College Sports.
“What happened here, which was wrong, could actually lead to something fundamentally positive, if they actually do this independent commission and they serve us specific recom
mendations so we can actually hit our potential for women’s sports,” Gibson said.
NCAA president Mark Emmert apologized last week, saying his organization “dropped the ball” regarding its support of women’s basketball players. “I am so sorry for that,” Emmert told the media. “That’s something we never should have allowed to happen.”
But Ensor was critical of Emmert’s long-term handling of the issue. Ensor pointed to Big East commissioner Val Ackerman’s “White Paper,” which she wrote in 2013 to document the problems and concerns women’s college basketball was facing.
“He hasn’t provided much
leadership on the issue for a long time,” Ensor said. “Almost none of the proposals (Ackerman) suggested were enacted and so everybody’s saying they haven’t done anything since that report
came out, that kind of starts at the top person. You commission that kind of study, not to then implement those changes seems to be a top-down driven issue.”
ESPN reported last month the Division I men’s basketball tournament budget was $28 million in 2019, the most recent year available, almost twice that of the women’s tournament budget.
At the same time, ESPN pointed out the men’s tournament brought in a total net income of $864.6 million, while the women’s tournament lost $2.8 million. However, Ensor said those numbers don’t reflect the growing popularity of the women’s game.
“Obviously the men bring in all the revenue, and everybody’s appreciative of that, but that doesn’t mean you don’t try to treat the women equitably,” Ensor
said. “It doesn’t have to be dollar for dollar, but it should be similar in terms of what they’re trying to present. … There’s a fairness doctrine in there, too, so you’ve just got to treat the women fairly.”
Quinnipiac women’s basketball coach Tricia Fabbri has taken the Bobcats to five NCAA Tournaments, including a Sweet 16 in 2017. In those years, the first and second round were held at campus sites. This year, they were held in the San Antonio area because of the pandemic.
“The COVID year just has shone a light that’s immense on the disparity, going into that bubble, the men compared to the women,” she said.