The inequality between men and women isn’t new. The only difference now are social media platforms and the recent pushes for equality. It started long before the two weights in a locker room, it’s started with pioneers like Babe Didrikson Zaharis, Billie Jean King, Althea Gibson, Manon Rhéaume, Wilma Rudolph, Lindsay Vonn, and Danica Patrick. Women that have made noise in a mans world, showing that women should be respected at sports. But let’s look at this a little deeper.
Babe Didrikson Zaharis is regarded as the female boundary breaker , and not just in sports. She endured criticism for not being feminine enough and being she did not let that stop her from winning 2 gold medals in Track & Field at the 1932 Olympics, 10 LPGA Championships and also participated in basketball, baseball, softball, diving, bowling and roller-skating to name a few. She actually qualified for 5 Olympic events in 1932 but women were only allowed to compete in 3. Being regarded as a leader in everything she touched. In fact she was voted the Greatest Female Athlete in the first half of the 20th Century. That didn’t come without a lot of criticism. In fact one reporter was quoted as saying, “It would be much better if she and her ilk stayed at home, got the,selves prettied up and waited for the phone to ring.”
Fast forward to 2021, 89 years after Babe Didrikson Zaharis was held to competing in 3 events when she qualified for 5, the inequality is eerily similar. What the NCAA did to the teams participating in their tournament shows that women get less respect, women are less deserving and lower class then men. From the swag bag to the weight room to the playing courts that don’t even identify it’s a NCAA tournament, they are showing less respect. If NCAA athletes aren’t supposed to get special perks during their collegiate careers, why are there different levels of swag, equipment and courts, especially when COVID-19 has nearly eliminated fan revenue?
The NCAA is expected to make nearly $613 million in revenue from the 2021 men’s basketball tournament, according to a Forbes article from February 2021. That’s about $200 million less than pre-COVID revenue. It’s the largest source of revenue for the NCAA each year. Typically the NCAA keeps 60% and the participating schools/conferences get 40% split among the teams. The deeper the run, the more money the schools get. The women’s tournament, in comparison, is expected to bring in roughly $42 million, mostly through tv rights (ESPN).
Here is the most striking disparity for me. According to a 2021 Sportico article, if the top seed in the men’s tournament, Gonzaga, wins they will get $10 million dollars for their school and conference. The top seed in the women’s tournament, Stanford, will earn $0.00. A bagel. A big plain bagel. Let’s couple that with school spending for their teams. Expenses for the four top #1 seeds in the women’s tournament (Stanford, UCONN, South Carolina and NC State) was just about $6 million per team. Those same institutions spent $9 million on their men’s basketball teams. The top men’s teams (Baylor, Gonzaga, Illinois, and Michigan) spent $10 million in their teams, compared to $5.7 million on their women’s teams.
This disparity in spending is systemic. From the NCAA down. It even relates to coaching salaries. The average compensation for head basketball coaches is $2.2 million per year for men’s teams and $830,000 for women’s teams. Let’s go a step further, male coaches of women’s teams earn $960,000 while female coaches earn $750,000. $210,000 less in the SAME sport.
The point of this? Should anyone be surprised by the NCAA setup for the men’s and women’s tournaments? Women’s basketball has a pro league with many teams supported by the NBA. How is it that the differences between men and women is that vastly different? Because it’s been the norm. Because the voices have not been heard. Nell Fortner had a powerful Twitter post thanking the NCAA for messing up enough that a student-athlete, Oregon’s Sedona Prince, tweeted about how different the weight rooms were. And she did it to the tune of 17.2 million views as of this post writing. That is the difference between Babe’s era and where we are today. There are powerful movements for change and equality, and there’s this thing called social media. Babe started it, Billie Jean continued it, then came Manon, Diana, Alex, Megan, Serena, etc., etc. these pioneers help pave the path that has been broken to this moment, to this tweet, and to this reaction. It’s time. It’s time for the NCAA and the schools that are supposed to support student athletes to pay back to where it matters most…to the athletes. Maybe it’s not money to the players but let’s get equal expenses and equal coaching payroll. The time is now.
Time Out With Jenn & Lisa 