Two female lawmakers, Reps. Mikie Sherrill (D., N.J.) and Maria Salazar (R., Fla.), have introduced a bipartisan bill to address and promote fairness and equity in women’s sports.
The Women in NCAA Sports (WINS) Act would establish a 16-member congressional commission to study equality in the NCAA’s operation of tournaments and other programs for which there are men’s and women’s divisions. The commission will present a final report with policy recommendations that the NCAA should adopt to promote equality and fairness between men’s and women’s programs and reforms Congress should consider to improve oversight of equality at the NCAA.
According to the bill text, the commission report to Congress must include:
1. A comparison of the NCAA’s treatment of men’s and women’s teams in postseason tournaments and other programs including venues and equipment provided for games and practices; lodging and transportation; media contracts; licensees, sponsors and overall budgets.
2. An analysis of the NCAA’s constitution and policies that affect equality between men’s and women’s college sports teams.
3. An overview of federal government support for the NCAA and recommendations for improved federal oversight of the NCAA’s promotion of equality.
The bipartisan commission will be composed of members appointed by the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate leadership, with special consideration of individuals with experience or professional expertise in college sports, equality or Title IX compliance and those who are former college athletes, coaches or athletics administrators.
“The NCAA has made some progress in correcting the most obvious gender inequities within the Division I Basketball Championships, but there are far bigger organizational issues left to tackle,” Sherrill said in a statement. “This bipartisan legislation is the next step to ensuring the NCAA lives up to its responsibility to follow the mandate of Title IX and stops tolerating discrimination.”
In a letter sent last spring to then NCAA president Mark Emmert, Sherrill and two other lawmakers chided him for failing to take meaningful steps to ensure gender equity in college sports after the debacle of the 2021 women’s tournament, when a picture of the event’s inadequate weight room sparked a wave of criticism toward the association.
In response to the situation, the NCAA conducted an internal review and hired a law firm to evaluate and produce a report on the organization’s policies and practices related to gender equity. While the NCAA has satisfied some of the recommendations in the report—for instance, the association has now branded both tournaments as March Madness as opposed to only the men’s event—the organization has failed to implement several other recommendations, Sherrill and Salazar say.
This year’s women’s tournament final drew a record-breaking 9.9 million TV viewers, a whopping figure that many professional sports postseason events do not garner. The championship exceeded every NBA playoff game last year except NBA Finals games and every MLB postseason game last year except World Series contests.
It is a timely figure. The women’s tournament is set to enter the final year of a $34 million TV contract bundled with other Olympic sports. However, many have suggested the event warrants a standalone, more lucrative TV deal. An NCAA study last year showed that the rights to the tournament could be worth as much as $112 million.
