How Caitlin Clark Economics Can Change the NCAA

In 2021, the men’s and women’s weight rooms perfectly illustrated the NCAA gender gap:

Ranging from the food to the swag to prohibiting March Madness branding, the women had less. During 2019, the NCAA spent $53.2 million on the men and $17.9 million on its women. Most egregious though was the broadcast disparities. While the NCAA had a separate lucrative contract for the men, it had packaged the women with other programming. Because they expected the women’s games to attract a smaller audience, the contract guaranteed that they would.

The small stuff shifted, though, when the weight room image went viral. Forced to allocate more to the women’s games, the NCAA made some changes. They increased the number of female teams and spent more on the women. In 2022, when the men got a gift box that included a notebook, a sleeveless hoodie and a baseball cap, the women received a gift box with a notebook, a sleeveless hoodie and a baseball cap. They also made sure that creating equal lounges meant the men and women each had 28 pillows.

But the crucial issue was the broadcast rights.

Caitlin Clark Economics

The New Contract

In a contract that starts September 2024, the NCAA added an 8-year $920 million extension to the existing media rights package. Defending the package, NCAA president Charlie Baker says the women are valued 10 times more than previously. In addition, their title game will be televised on ABC.

Still though, the women’s sports are bundled together rather than women’s basketball getting a standalone deal like the men have.

The Caitlin Clark Phenomenon

This year, however, the women have the big name. Playing for top seeded University of Iowa, Caitlin Clark has been dazzling fans with her “3-point bomb.” As a fiercely competitive charismatic athlete, she has massively boosted ticket sales and prices. The ABC audience for the LSU Iowa championship game was a record-setting 9.9 million.

We can only guess what a standalone women’s basketball media package contract would go for. But we have to wait eight years for the Cailin Clark phenomenon to kick in.

Our Bottom Line: Patriarchal Systems

Economist Nancy Folbre can help us grasp why the March Madness tilt to men remains. Although she discusses the patriarchal systems that shape household inequity, March Madness is comparable. The reason? Both have a powerful network of men that controls resources. Faced with the pressure to change, the NCAA would have to eliminate jobs and implement new procedures. As Folbre says, the labyrinth of traditions that lead to gender inequity is tough to unravel.

Or, as the NCAA funded report on gender inequity concluded:

“The primary reason, we believe, is that the gender inequities at the NCAA—and specifically within the NCAA Division I basketball championships—stem from the structure and systems of the NCAA itself, which are designed to maximize the value of and support to the Division I Men’s Basketball Championship as the primary source of funding for the NCAA and its membership.”

Only with players like Caitlin Clark that generate massive revenue can we erode the patriarchy. Only with a standalone deal could the women have proved their profitability. We could call it Cailin Clark economics.

My sources and more: Thanks to the NY Times for the perfect podcast and article on Caitlin Clark economics. Then, detailing the new NCAA media package, the Athletic had the ideal complement. And finally, Nancy Folbre gives us the framework for understanding where March Madness went with equity.  In The Rise and Decline of Patriarchal Systems and her Bruegel interview, we see the challenge of change

Please note that several of today’s sentences were from a past econlife post.