Danielle Donehew
Unleashing the official use of March Madness is one of the accommodations the NCAA brought to women’s basketball following the debacle at last year’s tournament, when a TikTok video went viral exposing the inequities between the men’s and women’s weight rooms and perks. The video showed the women’s weight room consisted of a single rack of free weights and some yoga mats. Other significant differences between the men’s and women’s teams, such as in their food and swag bags, were also brought to light. What followed was an external gender equity review of the NCAA by the law firm Kaplan Hecker & Fink LLP.
In the report, authors noted that while the NCAA had engaged in “salutary efforts to address inequities in women’s college basketball (and college athletics generally),” including a White Paper in 2013, “all too often, the proposed reforms that came out of these efforts ended up doing no more than sitting on a shelf.”
2022 Tournament
“From my vantage point, I was very encouraged with the improvements that I saw,” says Danielle M. Donehew, executive director of the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association (WBCA). “Those include the enhanced branding, the enhanced effort by ESPN to cover and promote the games, the ability for 68 teams to be in our tournament and the use of March Madness.”
This year’s tournament included the expansion of the field from 64 to 68 teams. One of the teams in that preliminary round was Howard University, which won its first tournament game in program history and advanced to the round of 64. Other changes included more equitable swag bags, better catering, and more commodious lounges at the Final Four.
