Close to $170 million in revenue will be distributed to conferences and schools after March Madness based on the performance of the teams in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament. No money is paid out based on how far the teams advance in the women’s basketball tournament.
At a time when all eyes are on gender equity issues in college athletics, the NCAA still uses an outdated and unfair formula to reward men’s teams, but not the women’s teams, said Amy Perko, CEO of the Knight Commission, an NCAA watchdog group.
With the start of another March Madness last week, the Knight Commission renewed its call to create equity in its method of revenue distribution. Perko said rewarding schools for success only in men’s basketball goes against the NCAA’s own principles of operating in a gender equitable way.
”The formula that’s been used for close to 40 years has a major flaw in it,” Perko said. “If the NCAA is going to continue to reward athletic performance, then it needs to do so in a gender equitable way. The message the NCAA is sending is that its members care only about the success in men’s basketball. … Incentives demonstrate an organization’s values.”
