Fighting for Equality in the NCAA

In 2013, when Val Ackerman began her tenure as commissioner of the Big East Conference, she compiled an extensive report on women’s basketball for the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). Entitled “Division I Women’s Basketball White Paper,” the account includes interviews with 240 NCAA representatives, detailing the shortcomings of NCAA women’s basketball, and how it could be improved.

"There is a tremendous appetite for change in the way Division I women's basketball is played, marketed and managed,” Ackerman stated in the report. She adds that no one she spoke with “advocated a laissez-faire or 'wait-and-see' approach to women's basketball; the overriding sentiment was that changes of some kind were clearly in order and that the time for action is now.”

These concerns ring just as true in 2021 as they did in 2013. The obvious, enduring inequities between men’s and women’s college basketball were spotlighted last month when a 37-second video filmed by Oregon forward Sedona Prince went viral. The video showed the NCAA women’s weight room, which consisted of a meager stack of yoga mats next to a handful of free weights, compared to the NCAA men’s workout area: a sprawling room with dozens of weights, rack stations, and hoards of equipment. The video garnered over 10.8 million views on TikTok, over 189,000 retweets, and even inspired outcry from the likes of NBA superstar Steph Curry.

Prince’s video magnified just one of a myriad of inequities between the men’s and women’s tournaments. The NCAA failed to have consistent courts in the opening rounds of the women’s tournament, offered the women infrequent COVID testing, and used inconsistent logos and branding. In terms of marketing the tournaments, the widespread term "March Madness” seems to apply only to the men’s tournament, while branding for the women’s games only used the phrase “NCAA Women’s Basketball.” Even the official Twitter account for March Madness reads “The official NCAA March Madness destination for all things Division I NCAA Men's Basketball.”

Leaders within women’s basketball were quick to condemn the NCAA. According to ESPN, America East commissioner Amy Huchthausen and Ivy League executive director Robin Harris wrote a letter to NCAA president Mark Emmert in the midst of the weight room scandal stating, "It warrants a comprehensive discussion once the tournaments conclude about how we — national office staff and membership — can protect and ensure equity across all championships in the future, but especially in the sport of basketball.” In the same ESPN report, former Notre Dame coach and current ACC Network analyst Muffet McGraw also chimed in on the disparities. “We don't want apologies. We don't want you to fix it today. We want you to fix it for good, but you have to change your mindset and that's the problem.” She also said of the NCAA, “How can you expect the same people to operate in a different way? It's not going to happen.”

Last week, NCAA president Mark Emmert told reporters at the women’s tournament in San Antonio that “there’s no excuse” for the organization’s continued shortcomings. The NCAA as an entity has also since apologized, indicating in a statement that they are focused not just on the issues that occured at the 2021 tournament, but also on the cultural overhaul that is needed to protect, market, and grow women’s basketball going forward. In the same statement, however, the NCAA also cited the pandemic as posing a challenge to its ability to provide two equitable tournaments this year, specifically claiming the organization had difficulty finding multiple neutral sites for the games as well as suitable COVID testing. The sentiment was echoed by the NCAA senior vice president of basketball, Dan Gavitt, in a statement to reporters on March 19 in which he said, “What we pull together in months and years, we tried to do in weeks and days,” adding, “That’s meant some shortcomings.”

Despite the NCAA’s multibillion-dollar television contract with CBS/Turner, as well as its $500 million broadcasting deal with ESPN, which includes rights to women’s games and tournaments, the NCAA has generally neglected to be transparent about how it distributes these resources. On March 26, the NCAA did share that the men’s 2018-2019 tournament netted a total of $864.6 million, while the women’s tournament lost $2.8 million. But those numbers alone don’t tell the whole story. For example, men’s teams and conferences receive tournament-generated money for reaching the tournament, and earn more money for every game that they win up until the Final Four, whereas women’s teams don’t receive any money for winning the tournament. The numbers from the 2018-2019 report also indicate the $28 million budget allowed for the men’s tournament (compared to just $13.5 million for the women’s) is rationalized by the NCAA on the basis that the men’s tournament can necessitate a larger cost, given the larger share of revenue generated by men’s events, compared to women’s. It’s fair to question that, despite all the NCAA’s resources, it may be ultimately holding back women’s basketball from major strides and recognition.

A significant theme throughout Ackerman’s paper is a desire for solidarity among women’s programs in the context of an organization filled with disparities not only between the men’s and women’s games, but within the women’s sport itself. The discrepancies between some of the stronger programs compared to the mid-tier teams make it harder for headlining programs to coalesce with others if it might diminish their share of an already meager pie. Stronger programs like Stanford, UConn, or South Carolina, for example, with more marketable histories and players, have an easier time keeping their women’s teams funded and playing in nationally broadcasted games, compared to lesser programs, which struggle to find recognition and funding.

The reason Prince’s video almost instantaneously made the NCAA act on the issues Ackerman and other leaders in NCAA women’s basketball have been pointing to for nearly a decade is that Prince forced the NCAA’s hand. The organization can’t quietly quench a fire that is burning on its front doorstep while millions watch.

Ackerman’s report details several ideas for potentially magnifying and bolstering the appeal and revenue of the women’s tournament, including choosing one host site for multiple years, and creating a bubble-style sweet 16 where all remaining teams would remain on a singular site, utilizing the same court. She also advocated utilizing bigger and more active cities like Las Vegas, among others. She also proposed hosting the men’s and women’s tournaments in the same city over the same weekends to maximize branding and visibility. Ackerman told ESPN on April 3, “This can be a moment for change, but that remains to be seen. There's now a frenzy of activity and conversation.” She adds, “There's not one thing in play here. It's not just the weight room. There's many pieces to this.” She’s right: This is not about one issue, but about the simultaneous pursuit of immediate change that can be sustained in the future, and the striving toward a better future that’s actionable today.