Max McAuliff, staff writer
The 2021 men and women’s NCAA tournaments kicked off last week and have been well worth the two-year wait.
The men’s tournament has seen a plethora of upsets, with four double-digit seeds in the Sweet 16. The women’s tournament has been just as exciting with all four number one seeds dominating their opponents and advancing.
However, one of the biggest stories to come out of the tournament did not take place on the court.
However, one of the biggest stories to come out of the tournament did not take place on the court.
The disparities between the two are immense. The men’s teams have an entire ballroom full of workout equipment, while the women’s teams had a single rack of dumbbells no heavier than 30 pounds.
The outrage at this was, understandably, immense. NCAA vice president of women’s basketball, Lynn Holzman, released a statement explaining that the problem was a lack of space.
However, University of Oregon women’s basketball player, Sedona Prince, shared a TikTok responding to the claim that the problem was not enough space.
The TikTok showed the women’s set of dumbbells, the men’s weight room and a whole lot of empty space next to the Oregon women’s practice court. Prince’s TikTok disputes the claim that there wasn’t enough room for the women to have a weight room. As of writing, Prince’s TikTok has 8.7 million views and 2.7 million likes.
The NCAA has been put on blast and rightfully so.
While the NCAA is being put on blast, the situation deserves context.
The amount of work that goes into planning the NCAA Tournament is vast and the pandemic surely made it a lot harder. The size of each weight room was probably one of the last things on the minds of the NCAA while they were planning both these bubbles. The NCAA deserves credit for successfully pulling off two bubbles thus far.
The argument that the men’s NCAA tournament makes more money for the NCAA than the women’s tournament will surely come up as well. It is hard to argue against this point because it’s true, the men’s tournament makes more money than the women’s tournament.
But that is how sports work in college athletics.
Sports that make the largest profits help fund the sports that make little if any profit.
The St. Bonaventure basketball team helps fund other sports at Bonaventure that don’t make a profit. Just because the women’s tournament doesn’t make as much money as the men’s tournament doesn’t mean the women should get worse practice facilities.
Two main problems are highlighted in this situation.
The first being that gender inequalities exist even on the biggest stage. The NCAA tournament is the crowning achievement for both men’s and women’s basketball. The fact that players must fight inequality when they should be focusing on playing basketball and celebrating their achievements is unbelievable.
The second problem is the greed of the NCAA. The NCAA doesn’t want to spend money on weight rooms for the women’s tournament and wants to keep as much of the profits as they can.
This shouldn’t come as a surprise as the NCAA has prioritized its own monetary gain for years. While the cancellation of the 2020 NCAA tournament lost the NCAA billions of dollars, they’re still a billion-dollar industry. The blatant greed exhibited by the NCAA is simply inexcusable.
As Prince said in her TikTok, “If you aren’t upset about this problem, then you are a part of it.”
The NCAA is part of a larger societal problem, and they need to do whatever they can to help fix it.
