The NCAA has a list of everything that will be different this year in the Division I Women’s Basketball Tournament. It is the smallest entries on the list that are noteworthy.
In a media presentation in early March, NCAA Basketball Leadership was sure to mention a few changes that were almost oddly specific: When men receive a gift box containing a notebook, a sleeveless hoodie and a baseball cap, the Women now have a gift box that includes a notebook, a sleeveless hoodie and a baseball cap. In: The women will have a yogurt bar and a pasta station to fit the men’s yogurt bar and the pasta station. In the Final Four, the women will now have lounges containing a ping-pong table, three large TVs and 28 cushions, just like the men in the Final Four.
The mention of the 28th pillow was as detailed as it damned.
“On the one hand, you are like, Thanks you. You know, players need to feel no less than in those areas, so I want to say thank you, “said UCLA women’s basketball coach Cori Close.” And on the other hand, you want to go, Really? How, really, it took a huge crisis and spent millions of dollars for analysis to get out, We must treat them the same? “
One year after the NCAA faced controversy over its different handling of men’s and women’s tournaments, it announced a suite of moves to change the experience. This comes after significant outcry in an independent gender equity rating from a law firm. The people around the game hope this is just the beginning: they are happy to see that the swag bags and lounge are now the same. But there are still many larger organizational issues to address.
Close believes the NCAA still has a long way to go if it wants to maximize the value of women’s tournaments.
Chris Pietsch / The Register-Guard / USA Today Network
This year saw some major changes in the NCAA’s business: The ladies’ tournament expanded to 68 teams, just as the men did in 2011, and the women’s players will finally use the “March Madness” branding. But that still leaves a lot of questions on structural issues with the tournament.
These questions are on a trainer like Close. She is the president of the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association – putting her at the helm of one of the largest groups that pushed for change last year. Coaches have long felt that there are striking differences between men and women. But those were never as clear-cut as they were in 2021, when both tournaments were forced by COVID-19 in bubble environments, and the differences were impossible to ignore. As a result, the coaches launched an initiative called Our Fair Shot, designed to highlight elements of women’s play that they felt were ripe for significant change.
One year later, most of the initiative’s concerns remain unresolved.
The NCAA insists that its recent moves represent only the beginning of its plans for women basketball: “There is more to do, and we look forward to doing much of it after this year’s championship with more time and more opportunities,” NCAA Senior Vice President of Basketball Dan Gavitt said at the same media presentation. But there are still questions about what that actually means – namely whether it will involve more of the moves recommended in the gender equity review by law firm Kaplan Hecker & Fink, and if so, which one and when.
Some of these recommendations focus on television rights. The men’s tournament has a massive deal with CBS and Turner, whose last extension for eight years was $ 8.8 billion. No one is saying that the ladies tournament would land a similar figure. But it never had a chance to try to land nothing: instead of standing alone as its own media property, it is part of a package with 28 other NCAA championships, such as wrestling, lacrosse, and gymnastics. ESPN holds the rights to this package on a deal that runs through 2024 with an average annual payment of $ 34 million.
The Kaplan report found that women’s basketball would likely receive an annual rights payment of between $ 81 million and $ 112 million alone.
In other words: The report claims that the NCAA potentially left tens of millions of dollars on the table by neglecting the income of the women’s tournament. There is little room for it to grow as its own product with its value combined with so many other sports. (When the NCAA initially responded to the scandal over the tournament last year, it claimed that the discrepancy between the men’s and women’s tournament budgets was because men brought in money, while women made $ 2.8 million every year lost – but it supported that number by saying they brought in the television rights paid by women and was only $ 6 million. largest championship in that group of 29, and therefore could represent a much larger slice of. the 34 million dollars, alone a much larger number in total if sold alone.) All this makes sense that the picture here is very looks different when the NCAA commits to breaking women out of the package and putting them on the market, their own in 2024.
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“The NCAA needs to get involved – not only will we allow the ladies’ tournaments to be released, but we’ll take advantage of it, market it, try to do our best,” says Close. “This would show that the NCAA really appreciates the marketability of women, and that it is not only a cause, but it is a product and an asset in which it will invest.”
Gavitt acknowledged that using women’s basketball in the current championship package “these rights are likely to be underestimated, and quite possibly significantly underestimated.” But he would not say whether the NCAA is committed to bringing the women’s basketball tournament to the market in 2024 alone, instead of keeping it grouped with the other sports, and only said that his team has begun “internal strategic planning. for how to deal with it. that. “
Other unaddressed recommendations from the report include the NCAA’s leadership structure. The head of men’s basketball is Gavitt, who immediately reports to NCAA President Mark Emmert. The head of ladies’ basketball is Lynn Holzman, who immediately … Gavitt reports. “While this structure, on its face, should not necessarily discriminate against Division I women’s basketball, many players report that, both in practice and in perception, women’s basketball essentially reports, and is subordinate to, Division I men’s basketball. , “reads the Kaplan Post. Both Gavitt and Holzman said their teams have worked together more in the past year than they have ever had before and have finally started having regular joint meetings. But the NCAA had no update on potential changes in the larger structure.
And the report also includes some suggestions of big-picture ideas. What if the men’s and women’s Final Fours were held in the same city – a big weekend of the best in college basketball? According to the report, “keeping a common Division I men’s and women’s basketball Final Four in one place over a single weekend would be the best, and possibly the only way to reduce existing gender inequalities in Division I men’s and women’s basketball.”
The NCAA said it was potentially open to the idea later but did not look into it now.
“We really just felt like we wanted to see how these future improvements would affect the game and the growth of the championship,” said Duke athletic director Nina King, who serves as chair of the Division I Women’s Basketball Committee. “We did not feel that at the moment we were implementing a change of format for the Final Four until we saw again how these improvements would play out.”
There is an understanding that some of these changes are ambitious and can not be implemented overnight. But there is also a desire to land commitments that retain last year’s momentum – even with all the structural barriers detailed in the report, women’s growth is growing, and this, coaches think, is the time to jump and to plan.
“The time is now,” says Close. “Not just because it’s right and we should have done it a long time ago, but because it’s a good business decision – a good asset worth investing in.”
Last year’s women’s tournament, in which Stanford Arizona climbed to the finals, was the most watched in history.
Elsa / Getty Biller
The numbers support the idea that this is a time of growth for the game – a time when investment makes sense. Last year’s Final Four was the most watched in a decade. This year’s regular season suggests that this could be even better: By early February, average attendance for women’s college basketball had risen by 46% since 2021. Also, the tournament selection show – which was traditionally held on Monday, but this year was moved to Selection Sunday, the same as the men-a large spike is seen: 1.1 million viewers, representing an increase of 160% by 2021. And the emergence of name, image and similarities has seen women basketball players earn athletes from all sports except football.
“We’re talking about women’s basketball,” said Holzman, NCAA’s vice president of women’s basketball. “All the data represents that. There are many reasons to continue to be bullish, and to really invest and continue to have a championship that is representative of that growth.
The hope for coaches and athletes is that the NCAA is ready to pursue.
“That’s the interesting thing I think we’ll learn next year,” says Close. “Is it just about ticking the boxes to avoid worse pressure? Or is it about, no, how do we move the needle? How do we get better here?”
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