I’m Samantha Bee. And if you think finding shrimp in your Cinnamon Toast Crunch is bad, just know
that I once found a full lobster in my Cheerios. I ate it. I didn’t complain. In other breaking news,
it’s time for the NCAA’s men’s and women’s college basketball tournaments. Unfortunately—and longtime
viewers of this show may be surprised—the men and the women in those tournaments
are being treated a little differently. - NCAA tournaments, both men and women’s,
are in full swing now with plenty of upsets. But some of the biggest drama happening off the court.
- So for the NCAA March Madness, the biggest tournament in college basketball for women,
this is our weight room. Let me show y’all the men’s weight room.
Now when pictures of our weight room got released versus the men’s, the NCAA came
out with a statement saying it wasn’t money, it was space that was the problem. Here is
our practice court, right, and then here’s that weight room. And here’s all this extra space.
In their defense, the NCAA said they left that extra space for women so they could
“take a turn about the room” while trying on dresses. While the NCAA later apologized
and unveiled a new and improved women’s weight room, their real message had already been sent:
women athletes are worth less than men. And unfortunately, it turns out that bad
exercise facilities weren’t the organization’s only technical foul. See? I know sports words!
- What is in your swag bag? - We got a water bottle—two
water bottles, an umbrella, a towel, and a puzzle. - I heard they got like, their puzzles were like
500-piece puzzles and your puzzles were like 100- or 200-piece puzzles. You also called
out the food quality. So tell me more about all that. What was that? Was that meatloaf?
Okay, that is terrible, but check it out, great idea: meatloaf puzzles! Whether you’re
eating it or you’re solving it, you’ll want to start with the gristly edges and work inward.
The NCAA’s sexist treatment of women athletes even extends to basic safety. This year,
the tournament gave women athletes cheaper, less sensitive coronavirus tests than men. Basically,
while men got the gold standard of virus testing, the NCAA asked women to cough into a handkerchief
and whisper, “it’s nothing.” Nor can the women’s teams afford to buy those things on their own. The
NCAA pays the conferences of men’s teams hundreds of thousands of dollars, while paying absolutely
nothing for women’s teams. And it’s not much better inside college athletics programs either.
Universities in the NCAA spend less money on women’s sports, including both on operating costs
and scholarships. It goes without saying that this sort of inequality should be illegal—and it
kind of is. A 1972 federal law often referred to as Title Nine was created to bar
sex discrimination in colleges that get federal aid, but most schools still aren’t complying with
it. Worse, the NCAA is not even subject to Title Nine. That’s not a loophole. That’s all hole.
Which I guess at least means the NCAA and your mom have something in common.
But if you dislike how schools and the NCAA treat women athletes, you should see how they’re covered
in the media—by which I mean, almost not at all. - Even though females represent 40% of all sports
participants nationwide, they only receive on average about 2
to 4% of all sports media coverage. - Female athletes, when compared to
their male counterparts, are much more likely to be portrayed off the court, out of uniform,
and in highly sexualized poses. - We were on television
nationwide in Canada. And then we come home to Boston, and no one even knows that we played.
To be fair, Canadians will treat anyone like a rockstar.
Even the plane from the Air Canada commercials has groupies. This is even more disheartening,
considering that it wasn’t until the ‘90s that women’s sports began receiving—barely—more
attention than sports involving horses and dogs. Even just a few years ago,
when Sports Illustrated named Serena Williams its 2015 Sportsperson of the Year, there was a debate
over whether Triple Crown thoroughbred American Pharoah actually deserved it instead.
Not the jockey. The horse. For sports “person” of the year. Even horses were like, [neighing]
You’d think that the NCAA would at least let women’s basketball promote itself, but even that
is weirdly difficult. Despite the “March Madness” brand being a powerful promotional tool,
the NCAA has withheld permission from the women’s tournament to use the phrase “March Madness” in
everything from social media to the floor of their games. Even worse, the NCAA will only
allow women to use the phrase “March Hysteria.” Hell, the NCAA even makes it hard to know if
women’s basketball games ever actually happened. - I am on the NCAA’s digital media hub, which is
where we’re supposed to get all photos for these tournaments. Okay, let’s go to the men’s. Alright.
We have photos on photos on photos, right? And we’re going to the women’s… There’s nothing.
There’s literally no photos on the NCAA’s website right now for any of the women’s games today.
Why, Miss, there haven’t been any photos for the women’s games in over 40 years!
To be fair, the NCAA does screw over all college athletes, not just women;
it basically exists to help schools keep their sports revenue to themselves instead of having
to pay the players who generate it. But women in college sports have to endure all the same risks
of physical injuries as men without nearly as many of the potential rewards. Women are far less
likely than men to have a lucrative professional sports career ahead of them. And believe me,
I know. I was a base-ketball all-star in college, before a grand-slam-dunk injury ended my career.
But if schools and the NCAA don’t want to treat women equally because it’s the right
thing to do, then they should at least do it because it would be good business!
Ratings for the last women’s Final Four rivaled those of the top men’s regular season games
this year, and demand for tickets to regular season women’s games was surging pre-pandemic,
sometimes outpacing the demand for men’s games. That’s inspiring. Just thinking about it makes me
dream of the day it’s safe to go back to a crowded sports event, eat a hot dog and look at my phone.
The fact is women’s NCAA basketball is an “if you build it, they will come” situation: the
more support and coverage women athletes get means the more the NCAA can make selling their games to
basic cable channels that are desperate for non-shrill content—not to mention new fans and
future athletes who haven’t had any reason to watch sports until they saw someone who
looked like themselves on the court. This isn’t complicated! By supporting women,
the NCAA could promote equality, keep their athletes safe, inspire a new generation, and
make a butt load of money all at the same time! If you ask me, that would be a home run for everyone.