The NCAA has for years treated women’s basketball as inferior to men’s, a stinging external review found, dramatically undervaluing and underfunding the women’s game in ways that go far beyond the disparate weight rooms exposed at the organization’s championships this year. The report, by the law firm Kaplan Hecker & Fink LLP, recommends serious reforms to the NCAA’s basketball programs, including a combined Final Four tournament and changes in the organization’s leadership structure, media contracts and revenue calculations. The review was commissioned by the NCAA in the wake of controversy over inferior facilities at the women’s tournament this March. The law firm found evidence of “systemic gender inequity issues” at the NCAA, including a reporting structure that treated women’s basketball officials as “subordinate” to those in the men’s game and media agreements that undervalued the women’s game by millions of dollars and severely limited their ability to bring in sponsors. NCAA officials repeatedly refused to allow women’s tournament organizers to use the “March Madness” branding in any promotional materials, the report found — even denying their request to print masks with the phrase “Mask Madness” for the tournament this year. In a statement, the NCAA Board of Governors said it was “wholly committed to an equitable experience among its championships. We know that has not always been the case and the instance of the Division I Women’s Basketball Championship is an important impetus for us to improve our championship experience so it is not repeated.”“We have directed the NCAA president to act urgently to address any organizational issues,” the Board said. While the NCAA apologized for the disparities after the controversy over the tournaments this spring, the organization also blamed the women’s game for generating far less money than the men’s, putting out a fact sheet that claimed women’s basketball loses substantial amounts of money compared to the men. The law firm’s external review, however, found those calculations were “skewed” by the NCAA, which incorrectly allocated revenue only to men’s basketball, and by sponsor agreements that prioritized the men’s tournament above the women’s. The report found that longstanding inequities in the NCAA’s treatment of women’s basketball — like smaller staffs, substantially smaller budgets, and a view of the women’s game as a perpetual money loser — led to the disparities that were exposed at the championship this March. Those disparities covered every facet of the tournament, the report found. The NCAA sought out corporate food sponsorships to feed Pizza Hut, Wendy’s and Buffalo Wild Wings to players at the men’s tournament, but not for the women. It spent $2.4 million on signage for its men’s tournament, and only $783,000 on the women, the report found — a disparity that came even after the organization was criticized for the clear difference between the appearance of the tournaments.
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