NCAA Review Shows Disparities Between Men’s and Women’s Courts

An NCAA gender equity review also pointed out the lack of "March Madness" branding on women's basketball courts.An external review of the NCAA unveiled dramatic disparities between the treatment of men’s and women basketball, finding women’s basketball was habitually treated as inferior to men’s, the Washington Post reported, and one glaring example was the basketball courts themselves.

According to the report, released by the law firm Kaplan Heckler & Fink LLP, the NCAA pays approximately $180,000 each year for the storage, transportation and installation of March Madness-branded basketball courts for men’s basketball. The NCAA owns nine such courts that it uses for early round games. In comparison, the women’s first and second round games are relegated to home floors at the different campus facilities where the games are played—and where the only branding for the tournament courts is an “NCAA” decal, which costs NCAA approximately $38.75 per decal. Three decals were sent to every host site—two for the floors and one back-up, according to the report. 

“Generally, these home sites have significant logos and branding of their own that make any covering or rebranding challenging, unrealistic, or would not be aesthetically pleasing to cover, especially in a two-to-three day window to execute,” one senior NCAA staff member is quoted as saying in the review.

The review found that a large number of the women’s basketball players who attended the 2021 tournament expressed disappointment over the way the women’s basketball courts looked, “particularly as compared to the courts used by the men.”

The review recommended a combined Final Four tournament for men and women and changes in the NCAA’s leadership structure. Following the report’s release, the NCAA stated it was committed to creating an “equitable experience among its championships” in the future.