By Rita Li, Staff Writer
The National Collegiate Athletic Association(NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that runs college sports. Recently there was a fiasco at the NCAA March Madness basketball tournament that represented widespread gender inequality for all sports and revived the gender disparity debate.
Coaches, players, and staff workers have revealed the stark contrast between men and women tournament experiences by uploading footage on social media. A viral tik tok video posted by Oregon star, Sedona Prince, comparing a fully supplied men’s weight room and an inadequate single weight rack in a mostly empty room enraged the public. In response to the outcry, the NCAA helped improve the women’s weight room overnight and promised to do better. However, the new weight room has still not met the same standards as the men’s weight room. The upgraded weight room is shown in this video, depicting that it is still not perfectly supplied yet.
Jen Critchley(45), a former basketball player from Colgate University, felt betrayed as the NCAA seemed so promising in bringing opportunities for female players. In the 1990s, Critchley never felt that she was treated differently from her male counterparts, as she, along with her teammates, found success to become teachers, doctors, and executives.
To find the root of the college basketball tournament inequality, the NCAA reviewed that men receive superior marketing and more expensive, higher quality COVID-19 testing. Currently in 2021, the logo for the men’s tournament reads “Indianapolis Final Four 2021” while the women’s logo reads “2021 Womens Final Four San Antonio.” The different written styles of the men versus women logos consist of specifically pointing out gender in the women’s logo, while remaining gender neutral for the men’s despite being part of the same tournament. The NCAA’s budget for the men’s tournament is usually over double the budget of the women’s tournament. Furthermore, while men win payouts for tournament victories, women get none. The reason that the NCAA barely focuses on women is because they deem men’s basketball and football much more profitable.
The struggle for NCAA gender equality, both on and off the court, continues to this day. To combat these inequalities we need the NCAA to be more diverse instead of relying on funding a few sectors to make profits. Women’s tournaments can be more popular and profitable with more investing and improved recognition that gender inequality still exists in such a progressive country. .
