A group of NCAA leaders are claiming that there is a new for more postseason opportunities for female athletes, claiming that the number of women who participate in postseason contests are not proportional to the number of women enrolled and trails the opportunity for men.
According to an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, this group claims that 1,000 more male athletes – not including football – participated in the postseason than female athletes. Most of this new marketing scheme for more women’s sports seems aimed at the NCAA’s purchase of the National Invitational Tournament – of course you never heard this group complain before about the tournament that has been around since the 1940s.
But, I take from ESPN’s Colin Cowherd who often talks about how the media can hype something but ultimately fans decide on their own what to watch. The same principle applies here. The NCAA and others can push for more sports for women – or men – but its ultimately the athletes that will determine what sports they want to play. Then when it comes to television contracts – another sticking point for the group – fans will determine what they watch and if they are not watching say the first round of the NCAA Women’s Basketball tournament, it’s going to be harder for advertisers to want to get behind a program and thus harder for the network to air the sport.
We don’t need Title IX to tell us this. This is common sense. I’m not saying there is no need for women sports – look back on my sports writing career most of what I covered was women’s sports or other non-revenue sports – but I don’t think we need government or a group within the NCAA to force upon the masses sports fans may not want.
