https://apnews.com/article/ncaa-title-ix-6133381ab633182dd155a6338c781665
Many questions surround how revenue sharing will work. The one that never seems to me to be addressed is “how will Title IX affect where the money goes?“ For years, I have heard the question brushed off: it doesn’t really apply. It doesn’t really matter. It won’t be a big deal.
I don’t claim to understand the fine details of Title IX. But I understand something about litigation. I’ve seen what has happened the last 40 years. Regardless of your position on any of this, or what you think should happen, human nature is a constant. People always want more.
The old NCAA system seems built on the basis of “We are all part of this school, sports are primarily part of the school experience, like debate societies or choral groups or student government.” Money was always something of an issue; stuff has to be paid for, but it was not “a revenue stream“ as much as it was a way to cover it’s own costs. Obviously, that changed over time, but that was the foundation.
College sports became more popular . People would pay more to go to a football game, they would listen in the radio and buy papers and magazines to read about it. Then came TV, and the internet. More money. And then comes Title IX. Pay for the women to have athletic experience opportunities equivalent to the guys, colleges. Make it work.
T9 kind of fits in the one for all, all for one college approach. Football may generate lots of cash, though not everywhere, but the rest of the sports? Negative net income, including most women’s programs everywhere (a few exceptions).
But the money keeps growing. And the people generating the biggest part of it are football players. Shouldn’t they get a share? It’s the capitalist way, they’re the ones getting beat up for a good TV show. The schools get all that money, they can’t pay people. So they sink a lot of it into facilities, staff, coaches salaries. Nature abhors a vacuum. It has to go somewhere. And some goes to women’s sports. Way more than they generate. But “college.“
There has been wrangling over how much women get, and under what circumstances. Far as I can tell, it has never been dependent on what they generate. It’s hard to square the capitalist approach, where the producers of income get a fair share of the cash they generate, with the everyone gets fed from the same bowl in this academic community approach.
i guess we will see. But down deep I feel like some enterprising lawyers are preparing for the new financial arrangement with every expectation of Litigation Wave 2, meant to correct any perceived shortfall in amounts paid to the women.
if, say, UGA football generates 200 million a year, I can see why players have a fair argument for, say, 22% of that. But track athletes? Golfers? Sure, let UGA pay them…from their own cut. And what about title IX? Equivalent money?
i don’t know the right answer. But I doubt it’s “sure, the girls will just agree they generate essentially Zero or less and be happy with less.” I could be wrong.
