CNN’s Homer De la Fuente performs what Rush always called a “random act of journalism.” In the midst of attempting to slam this “sexist” inequity between the way the men’s NCAA tournament got a lot more money than the women’s, Homer exposes some blatant truths
The NCAA allocated $28 million for the Division I men’s basketball championship for the 2018-19 season, nearly twice the amount budgeted for the women’s basketball championship that season, its budget report shows.
CNN obtained the budget document on Friday from the NCAA.
The New York Times was the first to report on the issue.
The 2018-19 budgets are the most recent numbers released by the NCAA after last year’s championships were canceled due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
That’s so horrible! The Times is taking the “it’s horrible sexism” route, too.
The most recent data shows the men’s championship tournament generated $864.6 million in net income, while the women’s lost $2.8 million, the highest loss out of any NCAA championship.
Oops. Perhaps there’s a reason the NCAA spends so much more on the men’s tournament.
On Thursday, the NCAA announced it hired a law firm to do an external equity review between all men’s and women’s championships across all three divisions.
In a statement to ESPN, NCAA chief financial officer Kathleen McNeely said, “The difference in the budgets is because of the scale of the two tournaments…and the nuances in the delivery, which tend to be committee decisions on how they’re going to deliver those championships.”
What are they looking at? It’s just the reality that men’s basketball is way, way, way more popular than women’s, and generates way, way more money. You can call it whatever you want, but, it’s the reality. If SJWs are so upset, they should tune into the women’s and not watch the men’s.
The NCAA cited in the report that “the gap in budgets stem from differences in tournament structure,” with the largest difference being the women’s first- and second-round games, which were played on school campuses and hosted by the higher-seeded teams — a decision put into effect in 2014 to grow fan interest and attendance, according to the document.
That’s because attendance is super low at the women’s, just like there’s a massive difference between the NBA and the WNBA. Hardly anyone goes to the WNBA games.
According to the NCAA budget document, “The men’s basketball tournament pays for nearly every other NCAA championship across all divisions except for four: baseball, men’s ice hockey, men’s lacrosse and men’s wrestling, all in Division I.”
That’s how much money the men’s tournament raises (football is not included, as it isn’t held in tournament fashion, and paid for by companies and TV revenue). People tune into the men’s, not the women’s, so, massive amounts of TV revenue. Kinda hard to Virtue Signal when you also provide the reasons why there is a budget discrepancy, eh?
The truth hurts:
Megan Rapinoe, the women’s soccer player, recently combitched that she isn’t paid as much:
Yes, it’s true: the women are paid less than the men. And they are paid less because they generate less revenue! They are paid less because they do not draw the fans in the stands, or the revenue on television, that the men do.
The real revenue comes from television, of course, and that means ESPN. ESPN puts on shows the leadership believe will draw the most viewers, and, being a network that is primarily watched by men, that means men’s sports.
But there are four women’s sports which do draw some sports networks’ coverage: NCAA women’s basketball (WNBA, not so much), NCAA women’s volleyball, women’s figure skating, and NCAA women’s gymnastics. Why? Well, at least in the latter three, the sports are filled with really pretty, mostly white girls.
That’s what attracts male viewers, while women viewers rarely check out the schedules on the sports networks.
Women’s soccer? There are some nice looking women playing soccer as well, but the pitch being so large — too large, really, which leads to so many 1-0 and 2-1 contests — viewers cannot really see the individual players as well, so their attractiveness factor is diminished. The fact that the lovely Miss Rapinoe has stressed how many lesbians there are playing professional women’s soccer — something that has also happened in the WNBA — will also attract fewer male viewers.
Besides revenue, there is one other HUGE factor the women never mention.
Because women’s soccer pro leagues make little revenue, the compensation they get from the US national team is the major source of their income. They are paid a guaranteed salary for being part of the national team, even if there are no games going on, and also get medical benefits.
The men make most of their money from their professional club team, so they only get paid for the short times when they are selected for actual national team games that are happening, and they get no benefits. They get nothing if there are no games happening or if they don’t make the squad for a particular game.
The women are complaining that what they are guaranteed to make is less than what the men can make.
The women were given the option to switch to the pay structure the men have, and would have been paid the same amounts the men are and there would be no discrepancy. The women voted it down, because except for a few like Rapinoe who evidently have other sources of income for being a loudmouth complainer, the bulk of the women did not want to give up the security of guaranteed pay and benefits.
From the Babylon Bee:
source: https://babylonbee.com/news/15-year-old-boys-soccer-team-demands-equal-pay-for-beating-us-womens-team
…and?
Asked and answered. Why is this newsworthy?
Please, no facts when we’re dealing with victim groups..
Who cares?
Make the NCAA pay through the nose for all of it. Better yet, make the NBA, NFL, MLB, MLS and all of the other sports that use NCAA as their “minor leagues” to pay for it.
I don’t care if it costs a million-bazillion dollars for the NCAA to “correct” itself. They’re not hurting for cash.
We’ve lost the culture war on this one. Going all “principled conservative” isn’t likely with lawmakers. Especially after they just confirmed a transexual who wants sex changes available for minors rather than face backlash. The alternative was backlash from trans “activists”. As is par for the course, the Senate sided with the activists over voters…
Compiling a list of 24 different sports across 135 colleges and universities that field at least one of the athletic activities, we discovered an interesting fact.
This list does include many smaller schools that did not generate much revenue. That being said, the average amount of money spent per year by institutions is upwards of $30 million.
While most of these schools investigated have an average of 15000 undergraduate students and assuming the money comes from their tuition, that would equate to around $2000.00 burden per student.
To explain Where the Money Comes From and Where the Money Goes was identified by the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics. 230 schools release their financial data while the NCAA is NOT REQUIRED BY LAW TO DO SO ITSELF.
Two things of note here. ONE….State, municipal, federal and other money used in support of athletics. This amount includes funding specifically earmarked for the athletics department by government agencies for which the institution cannot reallocate. This amount includes state-funded employee benefits.
and secondly:
NCAA/CONFERENCE DISTRIBUTIONS, MEDIA RIGHTS, AND POST-SEASON FOOTBALL:
Definition: Revenue received from the NCAA (including championships) and athletics conferences, media rights, and post-season football bowl games.
In short college athletics is in fact misogynist because it receives money from state, federal and local governments.
And example of this is girls cross country and track and field is broadcast by Flo-Track….ever heard of Flo-Track? Didn’t think so. You can only watch the events if you subscribe or hope they release videos of the events on YouTube months or years later.
However the NCAA will televise and retain the rights to MENS track and field but Not Cross Country.
A hodgepodge of events in which the NCAA is profit seeking and does in fact earn a profit. Now it is certainly not the NCAA’s fault that people do not find enjoyment in watching womens’ sports which is a shame because it is certainly more entertaining than watching Men run or play softball.
In conclusion I believe that the NCAA and state, federal and local governments are obligated to equally invest in both mens and womens sports. I do not advocate such for professional sports. The market determines that, but in reality, educational opportunities are equal for men and women and the funding is 50/50 for academics therefore I see no reason why it should not be equal for Athletics as well despite the profit motive.
An Analysis of spending shows that if each college were to up their tuition about 1,000.oo per student then the spending could be evened out and there would be no discrimination intended by state, federal and local governments, DONORS and the NCAA who negotiates rights to televise Football and Basketball games but spends very little if any of their money on the other dozen sports fielded and overseen by the NCAA and yet very little FUNDING IS USED to run these events.
Just my two cents. It is not about profit or loss in Academia. It is about a subset of fairness that is implied by our colleges when you enroll….remove this implied legal mandate and then do what the hell you want.