More Blame For Title IX

The College Sports Council, self-defined as a "national coalition of coaches, athletes, parents, and fans" that is trying to "reform Title IX regs that have led to the widespread elimination of opportunities for male athletes" has put out a report that says the NCAA's stats undercount the number of men's teams that have been cut over the past 15 years. The Independent Women's Forum thinks this is great and re-posts a host of charts and graphs (with subtitles like "Football's Not the Problem") that tells a basic story that no one really disagrees with, although we might squabble over the numbers a little. In short, CSC says the average number of male teams offered by an NCAA Division I institution fell from 10.2 in 1981-82 to 8.9 in 2004-2005 while the average number of women’s teams rose from 7.3 to 10.2. The NCAA will give you slightly different numbers but agrees that men's teams are down and women's are up. And so?

So the story goes that men's teams, namely wrestling and gymnastics and other "small interest" sports, are going extinct because of Title IX, "sacrificed" to make room for female athletes. Yes, these sports are in jeopardy. And yes, Title IX's proportionality standard (that women's sports opportunities correspond with the percentage of women on campus) does have a role in this- it's pushing institutions to make hard choices about how to invest their resources (and with more women on campus every year, it does get harder).

But scapegoating Title IX and letting the universities off the hook is inaccurate and certainly isn't going to help male or female "student athletes". The real problem? Faced with hard decisions about how to invest equitably in men's and women's athletics, institutions are simply not willing to touch the glory sports: football and men's basketball. These budgets, including coaches salaries, are higher than they've ever been, and rising. Lay that over the framework of having to spend equally (yes, that is where Title IX comes in since men's hoop and football support male athletes) and something's gotta give. Should we cut the 6-figure video play-back machine for the football team (we really need it if we want to be good) or should we cut some other sports? Hmmm...

JMU is the most recent best example- they cut 10 teams (7 men's, 3 women's) last fall and started a big debate over how and why Title IX was at fault. The fact is that JMU tiered all of its sports (tiers 1, 2, and 3 depending on funding, alumni support, and other factors) and then chose to cut spending by cutting all tier 3 sports. This included men's teams (7) and women's teams (3) and was a decision made for pretty obvious reasons: they had to cut and they weren't willing to cut into the big teams. Even JMU, which initially named "compliance problems" as the reason for the cuts later admitted it was a financial decision. Message to those blaming Title IX for all athletic cuts: it's almost always about economics and rarely about compliance.

So if institutions aren't willing to cut into (not cut out, just cut into) football and men's basketball, don't blame Title IX. And the argument that these sports are the financial backbone of college athletics doesn't wash either. Most football teams- even the big D I-A schools- don't even pay for themselves. They run deficit programs while their budgets keep rising. No one's trying to cut men in favor of women (male collegiate athletes still outnumber female athletes)- they're cutting what doesn't matter to them in exchange for what does.