Stanford basks in afterglow
NCAA’s sexism: Will women be heard this time?
The 2021 women’s NCAA Tournament felt like a watershed moment.
It looked like change. It sounded like change.
But only time will prove if change is truly coming.
Starting from the first day, when Stanford trainer Ali Kershner’s socialmedia post pointing out the inequity in the weighttraining setups between the men’s and the women’s tournaments went viral, the tournament was a simultaneous push to both celebrate the women’s game and to fight for equity.
As with so many other injustices in the past pandemic year, patience has worn thin. Players, coaches and staffers are calling B.S. on the status quo of perpetually treating the women’s game as lesser than. And they are empowered with new tools to get their message heard.
“I hope this is a watershed year, for more than just NCAA women’s basketball,” Stanford head coach Tara VanDerveer said last week. “To me, it is symptomatic of so many things going on in our world.
“Maybe COVID brings this to a head, and we’re focused on, in terms of all the other viruses out there in the world. I hope this is a watershed moment. I hope we’re not sweeping this stuff under the rug.”
The NCAA — which apparently didn’t realize that college players carry phones in their hands and have huge socialmedia platforms — seemed to be caught unawares that its sexism would be so thoroughly exposed. Oregon’s Sedona Prince put out a Tik Tok video on the disparities that gained millions of views within hours. It shows how out of touch the NCAA is that no one could see this coming.
After all the mea culpas and backtracking and promises to do better, the only realistic response: Prove it.
The 2021 women’s tournament was, first and foremost, competitively thrilling. That’s the real place to start because it is the best rebuttal to all the nonsense the women’s game has to deal with.
The competitive balance has continued to grow. ESPN’s darling, UConn, hasn’t won a title for five years yet some still hold on to the tired line that the women’s field isn’t competitive enough.
As the tournament progressed, there were upsets. The Final Four was thrilling, with topseeded Stanford having to hold on to beat South Carolina, thirdseeded Arizona upending powerhouse UConn and finally a scrappy heartstopping onepoint victory by Stanford over its Pac12 rival Wildcats. Are you not entertained? The ratings and socialmedia impressions say that you were. Over the course of the tournament, television ratings showed huge increases over 2019. Socialmedia impressions skyrocketed, with the women athletes outpacing their male counterparts in followers and impressions.
In a strange way, the pandemic restrictions of the tournament created better coverage. Media outlets that might not have devoted the resources to covering the tournament in person, covered the heck out of it remotely. The Zoom news conferences were packed full with long cues of questions. The condensed schedule — smashing six games into 15 days — meant that the momentum and story lines continued to build. New stars were made. New faces emerged.
A lot of things converged to make this feel like a watershed moment. The backdrop of the work WNBA players have done in the past year in the socialjustice and political world. The ongoing fight for equality. The gross disparities not only in workout facilities for the women but in everything — as inconsequential as swag bags to as deeply important as coronavirus testing. The lack of branding by the NCAA, the lack of signage in San Antonio. The irony that all these inequities were occurring as Women’s History Month was being celebrated. The timing with the NCAA having to defend its warped business model in front of the U.S. Supreme Court as the tournament was taking place.
The biggest voices in the women’s game were having none of the status quo.
VanDerveer, ever the diplomat, blistered the NCAA for its “blatant sexism.”
“This is purposeful and hurtful,” wrote the sport’s winningest coach. “I feel betrayed by the NCAA.”
She noted that the message sent to young women is, “you are not valued at the same level as your male counterparts.”
Other head coaches also harshly criticized the NCAA, including Georgia Tech’s Nell Fortner (VanDerveer’s assistant with the gamechanging 1996 Olympic team).
“These disparities are just a snapshot of larger, more pervasive issues when it comes to women’s sports and the NCAA,” Fortner wrote. “Shipping in a few racks of weights, after the fact, is not an answer. ... In what other nonprofit educational endeavor is it acceptable to treat young women as a less valuable financial commodity?”
The momentum will continue. The players will stay on social media, amplified by the WNBA players. The Women’s Basketball Coaches Association launched a website ourfairshot.com to keep the pressure on.
South Carolina head coach Dawn Staley wrote, in an oped for USA Today, “maybe you paid attention for the first time because of the inequities that got put on blast by our players and coaches. … I’m glad people are paying attention to us now but … are you still going to be invested this spring and summer? What about next season?”
The women’s game, unlike the saturated men’s, has room for exponential growth. Sponsors can see it. Fans can see it.
If the NCAA can’t see it, it is because it simply doesn’t choose to.