In the world of collegiate athletics, male athletes receive the lion’s share of handouts from the House v. NCAA settlement, which, effective in 2025, allows universities to distribute up to $20.5 million of sports revenue to its athletes. With football and men’s basketball already receiving substantial name, image and likeness compensation, the settlement has not stopped schools from throwing more dollars into the “funny money” package. According to many reports, football rosters will require $40 million to $60 million in combined school and NIL resources to compete with the top spenders. Meanwhile, men’s basketball costs reportedly will jump 65% for next season. We all know that football drives the car, and men’s basketball is in the front passenger seat. But female athletes apparently must once again earn every cent they get.
Title IX requires that revenue-sharing models distribute opportunity and financial compensation to female and male student athletes equally. Yet, early plans suggest that roughly 90% will be going to the big two and 5% each to women’s basketball and other programs. If it were 10 years ago, one could argue that this is only logical — women’s athletics struggle to sell tickets or attract television eyeballs. But that argument is now nothing short of facile. We live in a post-Caitlin Clark NCAA world.
In 2024, a record 18.9 million people tuned in to watch South Carolina take down Clark’s Iowa squad in the NCAA women’s basketball championship. This year, even without the Hawkeye legend, the title game between South Carolina and UCLA (airing on a Sunday and not in prime time) still drew 9.9 million viewers — a 104% increase from 2022. While Clark alone cannot be credited with all the glory, she no doubt changed the sport’s scope and success. Iowa women’s basketball ticket revenue more than tripled between her sophomore and senior campaigns, and the same can be said for South Carolina; UConn has additionally seen a sharp upward trend since 2021, bringing in 4.2 million last year.
The sport has a significant star presence, and many players are cashing in via NIL opportunities on social media. It is an open secret in big-time football and men’s hoops that many NIL deals are just a way to funnel dollars to players without any reciprocal services. Supposedly, the College Sports Commission’s clearinghouse, commonly referred to as NIL Go, charged the powerhouse accounting firm Deloitte with the task of validating that deals over $600 will bring legitimacy. I am not holding my breath. The lawsuits will be many when a deal is nixed, and the beat will go on. Meanwhile, female stars who consistently bring value with their name, image and likeness actually live up to the plan’s intentions.
Despite this disparity, it appears the schools will simply “feed the beast” under the new revenue-sharing plan and wait for the next Clark to force their hand to actually notice that the ladies deserve, if not equal pay, at least more than crumbs from the banquet table set out for the big men’s sports. Unfortunately, I am pessimistic about this possibility. Clark thrived because she could be compared to her male counterparts — most notably in how her shooting range compared favorably to the legendary Steph Curry. Women’s college basketball, however unnecessary the correlation is, will always exist and be discussed in relation to the men’s game. Collegiate softball, volleyball, gymnastics or even soccer sadly do not have the same platform to take off quite like hoops.
Do not get me wrong. I hope that I am laughably and unconscionably incorrect. But the growth in NCAA women’s basketball and the extant lack of equal recognition among its athletes — at least in any way beyond a “Cheer Her Name” campaign — poses a question concerning whether or not they will ever receive a level playing field. This is something I cannot exactly answer, but I can promise one thing: if female athletes ever do make their way to that arena, they will do so on their own, with no help from anyone else.
