According to the U.S. Department of Education’s Equity in Athletics Data Analysis (EADA), during the 2022-2023 fiscal year, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst spent a whopping $47.6 million combined on the men’s and women’s varsity athletic programs. However, the total expenses for the men’s and women’s sports teams illustrate discrepancies.
More specifically, UMass Amherst’s total expenses for the men’s sports programs were $25.1 million in 2022. Despite that there are only nine men’s varsity teams compared to the 10 women’s teams, the women’s sports programs’ total expenses were $12.2 million in the same year. These totals include the salaries of coaching staff, athletic-related aid, recruiting expenses, game-day operations, and other team-related expenses.
The EADA also listed that UMass Amherst’s not-allocated athletic expenses add up to $10.2 million.
The gap is even more blatant when comparing the recruiting expenses. The EADA found that UMass Amherst spends $648,300 on recruiting for the men’s athletic programs compared to only $291,898 on the women’s athletic programs.
Women’s sports are expected to thrive with a small amount of funding, and time, and then they are held to an impossible double standard when they are not able to turn a profit as fast as the men’s sports industry does.
“In my opinion, the biggest issue in women’s sports is one we rarely talk about. Marketing. We have a major marketing problem. The issue is this: we do not treat women’s sports like sports. We treat them like a charity,” Haley Rosen, the founder of Just Women’s Sports, said in her Ted Talk ‘The problem with women’s sports’. “This mindset is so pervasive that it can be hard even to notice. But how many of you have heard someone say that we need to support women’s sports? Have you ever heard someone say we need to support the NBA or NFL? Of course not, it sounds absurd.”
The Knight-Newhouse College Athletics Data Base found that the total cost of operations for the UMass Amherst varsity athletic programs in 2024 was $61.89 million. According to this database, 61% of the revenue that finance these programs comes from institutional and government support.
This raises questions on how they allocate these funds and what specific athletic programs receive the most support.
The 2022 NCAA 50th anniversary Title IX report found that Division 1 athletics has the highest participation in championship sports for female athletes yet simultaneously has the largest gaps in funding women’s athletic programs.
“Division I continues to have the greatest gap in spending between men’s and women’s athletics programs. An analysis of total expenses indicates that Division I athletics departments are generally spending twice as much on their men’s programs than on their women’s programs,” The 2022 NCAA Title IX report stated. “The largest gap in spending occurs at the Football Bowl Subdivision level.”
Comprehensive coverage and consistent funding is just the bare minimum for equality in sports.
ESPN reported that women’s sports are projected to earn $2.35 billion globally in 2025 which is a 25% increase. Despite these historic accomplishments in the women’s sports industry, there are still blatant gaps in access to resources.
“Although media coverage of female athletes has nearly tripled in the last three years, women still receive far less coverage (just 16 percent of total sports coverage) than their male counterparts,” United Nations Women reported. “Increasing the visibility of female athletes is essential to providing more role models in sports who can inspire girls to continue playing.”
To close these gaps there needs to be proper investment in women’s sports and increased media coverage. There need to be investors that see the potential of women’s sports and are willing to stay for the long hall.
Principally, women’s sports need to be treated with excitement and not guilt. These athletes deserve the funds and respect they have been denied for so long.
“You would never expect a flower to bloom without water, but women in sport who have been denied water, sunlight, and soil are somehow expected to blossom,” professional athlete Margaret Purce said at a White House event on equal pay in 2021 as reported by CBS Sports. “Invest in women, then let’s talk again when you see the return.”
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