March Madness is packed with amazing opportunities for fans, students and cities, but showcases obvious disadvantages between men and women’s basketball.
I have been given the fortune to travel to many cities this semester to perform at basketball tournaments for the Razorback basketball teams. From Nashville to Austin and now San Francisco, I have seen much of what is provided by the SEC and NCAA to the students participating in the event. Although both organizations provided schools with lots of funding for their tournaments, the quality of what is provided lacks for the teams.
For the women’s basketball team, much of what was theirs was ours. The team, band and cheer squad shared the same hotel, bus and plane for most of our trip in Austin last week in the Women’s March Madness Tournament. The environment of the women’s games is more informal than their counterparts.
In Nashville, although the band traveled separately from the cheer squad and team, we still frequently saw the team and interacted with the players.
Traveling with the men’s team is a different environment than women. The men’s team travels with much more faculty and staff than the women. Timing for arriving and departing for events is much less sound and communication between the cheer and band with the basketball team. Rarely are the men’s team seen in the hotel or around the town, which makes the connection feel a lot less relatable.
I forget that the players on the men’s team are students just like me, who go to school, have friends and have lives outside of this sport. The men’s team is treated like a commodity whilst the women’s team is treated as actual students. While the men’s teams make their trainers/assistants handle the luggage, the women’s team carried all of theirs. The situation that divides the two teams is not the fault of the students by any means but rather the price tag put onto them by the organizations the students essentially work under.
A perk about being at women’s sporting events is that typically they are significantly more affordable for the average fan. I enjoy an arena of young families and Arkansans with halftime performances from local extracurricular organizations such as dance academies and youth basketball as opposed to a packed arena filled with Greek life and wealthy rich Alumni. Increasingly college sports have become more about making money and less about showcasing a school’s best athletes’ talent for the community.
I am extremely appreciative of the success that college sports have gained. Without this, I would not have been able to participate in an all-expense-paid-for trip that travels across the country. I love getting to see the cultural diaspora of each city we perform in. However, the difference in men and women’s teams’ treatment is apparent and unfair. No matter how much one makes over the other, both teams are made up of student athletes who work equally hard. Both deserve respect and equal treatment not only from fans, but also from the organizers they work under.
