By Emily Tarinelli ’25
Staff Writer
In a unanimous vote on Thursday, Oct. 14, the National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I Women’s Basketball Committee and Women’s Basketball Oversight Committee approved a proposal to expand the Division I Women’s Basketball Championship bracket by four teams. Beginning in 2022, the proposal would allow 68 teams to compete in the tournament instead of the previous 64. The same change was approved for the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship in 2011.
“The committee’s first priority is ensuring that student-athletes competing in women’s basketball have a championship experience that is equitable to men’s basketball,” Nina King, the chair of the Division I Women’s Basketball Committee and director of athletics at Duke University, said in a statement provided by the NCAA. “Expanding the women’s tournament bracket to 68 teams would immediately ensure that student-athletes in both men’s and women’s basketball have an equal number of team opportunities to compete for an NCAA championship each year.”
The proposal is part of an ongoing endeavor to eliminate disparities between the men’s and women’s Division I basketball championships, the severity of which came to light earlier this year. FanNation reported that in March 2021, University of Oregon forward Sedona Prince posted a TikTok that exposed stark differences in training apparatuses — the men’s March Madness teams were given a gymnasium full of weight equipment, while the women’s teams were provided with six dumbbells, yoga mats and a stationary bike.
“If you aren’t upset about this problem, then you’re a part of it,” Prince said in the video.
The “problem” Prince spoke of began long before 2021. The New York Times reported that there was a $13.5 million — almost double — budget gap between the men’s and women’s tournaments in 2019, with the men receiving the majority of the funds.
USA Today reported that after Prince’s video sparked outrage on social media, the NCAA commissioned an independent gender equity review from the firm Kaplan Hecker & Fink LLP, which specializes in discrimination assessment. The review was conducted in August 2021. The firm’s report found that the men’s teams were provided with higher standards of food, workout services, recreational facilities and mementos when compared with the women’s provisions.
“The NCAA’s broadcast agreements, corporate sponsorship contracts, distribution of revenue, organizational structure and culture all prioritize Division I men’s basketball over everything else in ways that create, normalize and perpetuate gender inequities,” Kaplan Hecker & Fink’s report stated. “At the same time, the NCAA does not have structures or systems in place to identify, prevent, or address those inequities.”
The report provided several suggestions to the NCAA in order to establish gender equity in future women’s basketball championships, such as using “March Madness” branding for both the men’s and women’s tournaments and a “zero-based” budgeting system to ensure financial equity. The recommendation for expanding the women’s bracket to equal the men’s bracket emerged from Kaplan Hecker & Fink’s report.
Previously, as ESPN mentioned, the women’s basketball championship tournaments only had “Women’s Basketball” printed on their courts instead of “March Madness,” and all fiscal resources were rationed from previous years between the men’s and women’s tournaments. In addition to recommending a rebrand for the women’s tournament, the zero-based budgeting system will determine all expenses individually for the two tournaments each year. The NCAA approved both of these measures in September, and they will take effect in 2022.
“This is just the start when it comes to improving gender equity in the way the two Division I basketball championships are conducted,” Lisa Campos, the chair of the NCAA Division I Women’s Basketball Oversight Committee and director of athletics at the University of Texas at San Antonio, said in a statement provided by the NCAA. “Adding the March Madness trademark to the Division I Women’s Basketball Championship will enhance the development and public perception of the sport, and the oversight committee looks forward to its work to address other recommendations through the governance structure to continue those efforts.”
The proposal to increase the women’s championship bracket to 68 teams will now advance to a final review by NCAA governance committees. While the NCAA did not provide a specific date, an official decision to confirm the proposal will be announced by the middle of November.