NCAA Gender Disparity Report -- WEDNESDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

 ALL IS NOT EQUAL WHEN IT COMES TO NCAA

The NCAA Gender Disparity Report was released yesterday.  What it contained was the equivalent to a sucker punch to the gut of women's sports.  In short, the more I read, the more disgusted I became.

I know that our premise and mission statement here at Cardinal Couple is the joy and excitement of UofL (and other schools) women's sports. I step away from that today to bring you highlights of the report -- a report brings neither joy nor excitement. 

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*EVERYTHING* at the NCAA exists to support D1 Men's Basketball.  Even the organizational structure.  EVERYTHING else is secondary to that

-- CBS paid $1.1B for MBB television and corporate sponsorship administration contract

-- NCAA paid $34M for a package of 29 other NCAA championship television rights.

-- It is estimated that the WBB tourney alone is worth around $100M, which is 3 times what the whole package was sold for.  If NCAA were a corporation, shareholders would be at the door with pitchforks

-- Sponsors for anything other than MBB had to pay CBS to be part of a "sponsorship program" they administered, and then separately pay ESPN to get commercials on their channels. Talk about your Strong disincentive. Money from the sponsorship program, regardless of which sport or championship was sponsored, gets accounted for as MBB revenue because it was part of the CBS contract

-- Revenue sharing to conferences is based on the advancement of MBB automatic qualifier from conferences. There was no similar incentive for a WBB automatic qualifier . And, naturally, this Influences how conferences and schools invest !

-- Food. A Texas based grocery chain) dropped off food bins for athletes. NCAA staff sent them back because some of the items were from competitors of NCAA corporate sponsors. Included in some bins were notes from a local youth group supporting the athletes and calling out the NCAA, the staff refused to distribute them.

-- On gift bags, the NCAA claimed, at the time, that spending was roughly equal This was not so, more than double on men’s. On supplies and accessories kits, $70k for men, none for women

-- On “March Madness” The singularly use of the term was blamed, during the tourney, on a contract with CBS, but that was not true. It was also said that women’s basketball staffs rejected it, also not true.  In addition, there were several documented instances over years where women’s basketball staff requested use of the mark, and were rejected, and even reprimanded for it.

-- Other branding. It seems three times the spending for signage at men’s tourney compared to women’s -- *after* attempts were made to address equitability in signage and four times more in the venues

-- Associated events: $5M for Miley Cyrus Final Four concert at men’s tourney, no comparable event at all for women’s tourney. 2019 Tourney Town: $19M for men’s, ~$300k for women’s

And, there's more. If you want to read more of the report...go to

https://ncaagenderequityreview.com/

Gender equality in NCAA Athletics?  Don't make me laugh...

-paulie