Identity crisis: March Madness highlights shortcomings in NCAA’s approach to equity

by Justin Berry

Most hoop heads will tell you there’s no better time of year than March.

And they’re right.

Even as the pros enter a pivotal part of their regular season, it’s college basketball that holds most of the nation’s attention for these few weeks. We are enamored with the game, the upsets, the stories and the unpredictability—there’s no more fitting a term for it all than “madness.” Unfortunately, that initial excitement was sullied this year by a shameful example of negligence and hypocrisy from the NCAA regarding the women’s national tournament.

University of Oregon forward Sedona Price brought long-standing disparities to light after posting a viral TikTok that compared the men’s weightlifting area in Indianapolis and the women’s counterpart in San Antonio. The former was impressive and well-stocked with equipment, while the latter appeared to be a single dumbbell rack and some yoga mats.

After the well-justified outrage that ensued online and in the media, the NCAA scrambled and brought the women’s fitness facilities up to par. This is only the beginning of the disparities between the men’s and women’s amenities. From the food provided, to the welcome bags of NCAA merchandise and even COVID testing protocols, the women’s tournament was brazenly underserved across all categories.

The kind of organization the NCAA claims to be and what it has displayed are consistently at odds. In a capitalistic sense, its allocation of resources and funds isn’t controversial—but that’s not what college sports are supposed to be about. On its own website, the NCAA claims to be “committed to diversity, inclusion, and gender equity among its student-athletes, coaches, and administrators.”[1] There’s no mention of valuing profit and a business model over its supposedly altruistic intent. This is a matter of identity—when you claim to be an agent of gender equality among student-athletes, there’s no room for investing less in one side in the name of profit.

On the professional level, there’s often criticism of the pay gap between NBA and WNBA players. In this case, it’s a completely different argument. As one of the most valuable sports leagues in the world, the NBA doesn’t claim to be anything else. It is entirely about money for them. Though it’s certainly regrettable the WNBA has struggled with popularity and profit, for salaries to mimic what we see on the men’s side is simply unrealistic from a business standpoint, whether you agree with it or not. Those waiting for corporations to take financial hits in the name of altruism will be lonely indeed. It’s more realistic for collective bargaining agreements to be improved, and for salaries to grow as a result.

But for the NCAA, profit isn’t meant to be the primary concern, though multiple issues (including player likeness and compensation) suggest otherwise. Conversely, the NBA can claim “business is business,” and “supply and demand” arguments to justify the difference in pay for their leagues. The NCAA can’t use these arguments regarding its standards without compromising its very integrity as an organization.

Though women’s college sports have come a long way since the days before Title IX, we can’t be content with mere progress. The disparities highlighted during this year’s national tournaments have revealed the NCAA’s leadership in 2021 was still reluctant to live up to its claims of gender equality, undoubtedly out of financial self-interest. Often, people suggest solutions to problems that start from the top, in hopes that it will trickle to the bottom. In reality, the opposite approach is necessary in many cases. We must demand that women’s sports are supported equally before the professional levels if there’s any hope of bridging the gap.

If people see and expect girls and young women’s sports from youth leagues to the college level to be supported to the same degree as boys and young men are, we can expect a gradual change in the culture. Once those changes begin to take effect, it’ll become financially prudent for corporations to follow suit.

This year’s controversy forces the NCAA to re-examine whether it is genuinely interested in supporting women’s sports equally, or merely the appearance of it.

[1] www.ncaa.org