As the Women’s Finals rolls around tonight, the cloud looms over the NCAA only grows. Having abandoned the treatment of their female athletes as second-class citizens for decades, the real crackdown is beginning, as the organization gains support from all sides with growing expectations. increased to create NIL regulations, to tighten investigation of violations and now, to implement fair treatment of women’s sports teams.
Three House Democrats introduced a bill that, if passed, would create a 16-member congressional committee to investigate gender equality in the NCAA. A year after a viral video about an absolute joke about women’s weight gyms went viral during last year’s March Madness, the NCAA has taken several steps to make men’s and women’s basketball tournaments normal. equality, including allowing women to use “March Madness” branding and distributing more money to the underrated women’s league. There have also been improvements in facilities and accommodation for the women during their 50th tournament.
These changes were prompted by an independently contracted report with recommendations on how to make tournaments fairer, but Congress clearly feels that the changes made have not gone far enough. . If passed, this measure would legally push the NCAA toward making more significant changes toward fair treatment in sports that have both men’s and women’s teams more than just budget checks. but also differences in accommodation, sponsorship, transportation, media contracts, equipment provided for tournaments, and more.
“Despite last year’s scandal, the NCAA has made disastrous progress in correcting the deeply misguided attitudes and mistreatment of women’s teams relative to men’s teams,” said Representative Jackie Speier (D-Calif. .), one of the sponsors of the Gender Equality in the College Sports Commission Act with Carolyn Maloney (DN.Y.) and Mickie Sherrill (DN.J.)say in one declare. “And this continued even after the NCAA was issued notice for its unfair treatment of women on at least four prior assessments over the past 30 years.”
And they are not the only ones who think so. College coaches around the country are getting fed up with the way women’s basketball players are treated – earlier this week, UConn coach Geno Auriemma speak that “we talk about the dumbest things” when discussing how to make the clumsy of men and women more equal. A key example he gave was the fact that the men had significantly longer rest periods entering their Four Finals than the women’s teams given.
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“We’ve got the weight room squared away, and I’m sure we got other things squared away, but we don’t get squared away the things that are most important,” the 37-year head coach said. “Why don’t you address things that actually help kids get ready to play their best basketball at the most important time of the year?”
It’s the visible, obvious issues that the NCAA is fixing first, a priority that repairs their public image more than any actual discrepancy in the treatment of players. As March Madness is the NCAA’s biggest profit-maker of the year, a more valuable television deal would have to be negotiated for the women’s tournament in order for the organization to justify spending on it — and it can be negotiated, as it might be worth it more than ten times the current NCAA valuation of it.
Longtime Stanford Coach Tara VanDerveer is a proposer of a fair unit structure would, in theory, require the NCAA to allocate revenue from the “Basketball Fund” to schools based on the performance of both the boys and girls teams. As it stands, the NCAA’s allocation from this fund is based solely on men’s tournament results, which gives participating schools an incentive to invest more in their men’s programs as part of their program. of the vicious circle that keeps the women’s team on the sidelines.
In Tonight’s Finals 4, the green-blooded programs UConn and Stanford will go head-to-head, and South Carolina and Louisville newcomers will meet. It’s sure to be a thrilling night, but the real off-court battle has only just begun.
