Hand-me-down March

 So I guess Title IX is just, you know, a suggestion.

I guess college athletics is nothing but a revenue stream after all, because them that produces the most stream gets all the revenue.

I guess the (mostly) men who run the bidness venture known as the NCAA really are about half-bright, because how dumb do you have to be to so openly disrespect women's athletics?

They've heard of the internet over there, right? Instagram? Twitter? TikTok? All that?

And so how did they think the women playing in the women's March Madness were not going to be seriously pissed at the second-class citizenry to which they've been so clearly subjected? How did they not foresee some of those seriously pissed women would start posting photos of how different the swag and training facilities and even the meal plans were for them as opposed to the men?

The men got a swag bag full of all manner of goodies with "The Big Dance" and "March Madness" adorning it.

The women got scrunchies.

And none of it said the Big Dance or March Madness because only the men's tournament is allowed to use that branding.

Just like only the men's tournament allows payouts. 

Every school that wins a game gets a payout. No women's team, not even the team that wins it all, will get a red cent. Zilch, zippo, nada.

On and on it goes. Teams in the men's tournament in Indiana have access to an expansive, fully stocked weight room; the women in San Antonio have one rack of dumbbells and some yoga mats. The men get food catered in from the best restaurants in Indianapolis; the women get pre-packaged meals one player accurately described as "like nice jail food."

Perhaps most crucially, the men even have access to a more accurate COVID-19 test than the women.

It's absurd. It's scandalous. And the NCAA's been doing it for decades.

Their mucketies talk a good game about equality and how women's athletics are an integral part of their "mission," whatever that is, but it's all just a massive expulsion of super-heated air. Get to down to cases, and women's athletics is an afterthought. And that's because it doesn't produce the revenue men's athletics do.

Which is a tacit admission that top tier college athletics really is nothing but a corporate enterprise that operates like any corporate enterprise.

I know this because that's how some people will defend treating the women like hand-me-downs. The men produce more revenue, therefore they should be better rewarded. You don't see the low guy on the sales chart getting paid the same as the guy at the top, do you?

This misses the point entirely, of course, if you believe what the NCAA says is the aim of college athletics. If it's all about the "student-athlete" and education and gateways to academic opportunity, then who delivers how much dough should be immaterial. Women and men should be regarded as equally valuable components of the system.

And it's not as if the women aren't producing dough.

As Sally Jenkins of the Washington Post so witheringly points out here, the women's March Madness is not exactly a drain on the corporate ledger. The women's Final Four in 2019 set attendance records in a 21,000-seat arena. The championship game drew 3 million TV viewers. The entire tournament drew almost 275,000 fans.

Fans who paid. Fans who booked hotel rooms. Fans who bought concessions and ate at restaurants.

I doubt seriously if any of them dined on nice jail food when they did.

After all, they weren't the players.