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A32 sports
Diahuebs 28 OctOber 2021

Second NCAA gender equity report shows spending disparities

(AP) - The NCAA spends ments. It’s the second report the NCAA and have shaped
more on average on male from the firm, following its its treatment of other cham-
athletes than female ones, Aug. 3 one that recommend- pionships,” the report said.
particularly when it comes ed how to equalize men’s and “The NCAA membership’s
to the “mere handful of women’s basketball tourna- heavy reliance on the money
championships” viewed as ments. it receives from NCAA rev-
revenue sources, accord- enue distributions has placed
ing to a new report. The NCAA has implemented pressure on the NCAA to
some of those, including al- maximize that revenue and
The law firm hired by the lowing the women’s tourna- minimize spending so that
NCAA to investigate equity ment to use the term “March more funds can be distrib-
issues released its 153-page Madness.” uted to the membership.”
report Tuesday night, which
includes a series of recom- “The same structural and Tuesday’s report shows
mendations to improve the cultural issues that impact spending per Division I and
gap among all sports tourna- Division I basketball pervade national championship par-
ticipants, excluding basket-
ball, was about $1,700 less
for women’s participants
than men’s in 2018-19. The
NCAA spent $4,285 per
men’s participant versus
$2,588 per women’s partici-
pant.

The gap is even greater in
the six single-gender sports
like wrestling and beach vol-
leyball — $2,229 more per
student-athlete for the men’s
championships than for the
women’s.
The review also found that
sports with combined their
championships have fared
better on gender equality.

“We have seen that combin-
ing at least some portion
of the men’s and women’s
championship for a given
sport enables more coordi-
nated planning, increases
equity in the goods and ser-
vices, facilities, and resources
provided at the champion-
ships and eliminates or re-
duces disparities between the
‘look and feel’ of the tourna-
ments,” the report said.

Another piece of the report
shows NCAA doesn’t have
the infrastructure in place
to encourage equal sponsor-
ships at all championships.