In August, the first phase of the NCAA Gender Equity Review found that inequalities were “baked into the very fabric” of the Division I basketball tournaments. 

Yesterday, the second phase revealed that a similar culture permeates other sports.

“For sports in which one championship is viewed as producing significantly more revenue than its gender counterpart, stark differences in spending and staffing emerge, leading to inequitable student-athlete experiences in those championships,” the report said. 

The NCAA only considers Division I baseball, men’s basketball, lacrosse, hockey, and wrestling “revenue-generating.” So it largely treats women’s sports athletes as second-class citizens.

• The corporate sponsorship agreement “encourages uneven investment in championships.”
• Women’s sports received fewer fan fests, less investment in signage, and smaller venues.
• In 2018-19, the NCAA spent an average of $4,285 per men’s athlete but only $2,588 per women’s athlete outside of basketball — a difference of $1,697 per athlete. 

Even in women’s volleyball, where the NCAA spent about the same per athlete on both tournaments and provided marketing and larger venues to the women’s tournament, several issues materialized.

The media rights contract clearly undervalues other sports, too. It bundles 29 championships for an average of only $34 million a year. The first phase of the report found that women’s basketball media rights alone were worth millions more. 

One bit of good news? There’s apparently less inequality in Divisions II and III, where the governing body doesn’t consider any championship a moneymaker.

Since Phase I came out in August, the NCAA has already employed or begun to explore several recommendations for mitigating inequities in basketball.

The second report expressed cautious optimism that solutions could be implemented for other sports.

As with basketball, the NCAA needs to do some soul searching. It needs to consider how it structures championships, why it makes certain investment decisions, and how that impacts athletes in real life. 

• The NCAA should commission an outside valuation of its other sports’ media rights, the report said.
• It must ensure branding is equitable, “including but not limited to gender modifiers in championship titles.”
• It should study whether combining men’s and women’s tournaments would increase equity in the same sports.
• It should create a “zero-based” budget for all sports so that resource allocation can be equitable.

“We expect efforts to address gender equity across all sports to continue with diligence and a strong commitment to fairness so the NCAA can fully meet its commitment to provide positive championship experiences for all college athletes,” the NCAA Board of Governors said in a statement. 

Of course, not every specific solution the first report presented to fix basketball inequity will work for other sports.

But the question remains: Where was that commitment before?