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Tanzina Vega: I'm Tanzina Vega, and this is The Takeaway. As Americans clutch their brackets and watch the NCAA Basketball tournaments unfold, one player has gotten lots of attention for pointing out a major disparity.

Sedona Prince: I got something to show y'all. For the NCAA March Madness, the biggest tournament in college basketball for women. This is our weight room. Let me show you all the men's weight room. Now, when pictures of our weight room got released versus the men's, NCAA came out with a statement saying that it wasn't money, it was the space that was a problem. Let me show y'all something else. Here's our practice court, and then here's that weight room, and then here's all this extra space.

Tanzina: That's Sedona Prince, a player for the Oregon Ducks whose TikTok video showing the lack of equipment at the women's facility in San Antonio went viral last week. Women NCAA players said they were also met with inferior weight rooms, meals, and swag bags compared to their male counterparts.

On Monday, the Wall Street Journal reported that the NCAA doesn't even allow the women's team to use the iconic trademark slogan "March Madness" in their tournament promotions.

Sedona: If you aren't upset about this problem, then you're a part of it.

Tanzina: Amira Rose Davis is an assistant professor of history and African American studies at Penn State and co-host of the Burn It All Down podcast. Amira, welcome back to the takeaway.

Amira Rose Davis: Glad to be back here.

Tanzina: Wow, or should I not say wow? Was a surprise to the rest of us? Or for those of you who know and study the NCAA sports world closely, were you surprised by the disparities in equipment?

Amira: No. Not surprised. I think this is part of a long history of disparity, especially adjudicated by the NCAA. Many statements like former Coach Muffet McGraw, Dawn Staley, a lot of coaches are alluding to this being a long multi-year problem. I think what I was surprised by was the way that both Ali Kershner's image of the disparities in the weight rooms and Sedona's TikTok went viral, and the effect that it had in allowing people to speak up, allowing more players to come out, allowing WNBA players to also continue to uplift and highlight those voices, and all coming together to not let the NCAA off the hook.

You saw it first, Sedona's video was in response to the NCAA saying, "Oh, we know you're seeing the pictures, but there's just wasn't enough space." What we've seen is that these players, this generation is not content on these excuses being peddled out, and they have taken to TikTok and to Twitter and to Instagram to dispute that and to raise their voice and say, "We're not going to take this anymore."

Tanzina: This was a bad thing for the optics of the NCAA. Did anyone rush in to ameliorate the problem right away?

Amira: Yes. I think that you saw Lynn Holzman come out. You saw officials say, "Listen, we didn't have enough space. The food issue wasn't ours. That was a hotel." A number of excuses. I think that the force of evidence that was presented made those excuses dry up. It's very hard to say, "We don't have space," if there's a beautifully shot TikTok video showing that, and then the tune changed a little bit.

Then there were videos put out by Mark Emmert and Lynn Holzman, and these officials from Gavin from the NCAA saying, "We apologize, we dropped the ball. We were so focused on having a safe tournament. Here are the ways the logistics got messed up. There should have been more communication." They've put out videos apologizing now, but I think that a lot of what, to your point, that they're apologizing for is the optics of it, and there's actually a lot of other issues that didn't necessarily go viral, that still point to the standard disparity that are of a lot of concern.

Tanzina: I want to talk about that because often we talk on the show about NCAA issues, and they're often through the lens of male athletes. Part of what's interesting to me here is to really examine. We know that a lot of male athletes aren't treated very well, and there are lots of complications with how they can market themselves and what they're paid and how they're, in many ways, in some instances, used by universities.

It's a very complicated thing to be a high-level sports athlete, I should say, at that level, but for women's teams, what are some of the discrepancies that we're not hearing about? Are they paid the same? What else is behind the scenes here when it comes to women NCAA?

Amira: I would point out two things. First of all, some of the things that we are hearing, perhaps as much about that we should pay attention to is the COVID testing that is being brought in for the women is not the same PCR testing that is provided in Indianapolis despite as Dan Solomon from the Texas Monthly has reported. San Antonio having a site specifically for PCR testing, so inferior COVID tests that aren't as quick, aren't as effective is a problem.

The way the NCAA counted children and nursing infants against the teams account for how many people you could bring into the bubble, really disadvantages parenting coaches, particularly women, especially if they are nursing and need to make a choice between bringing another member of personnel or their baby that they're providing sustenance too. These are other things that are systemic, that are occurring that are of much concern.

You pointed out at the top of the show, the issue of branding and March Madness, of course, but the other thing I really want to say is that the conversations that we have about exploitation on the men's side are not separate from this issue. One of the things that we saw in response to some of these viral videos and images, people say, "Oh, it's about revenue, it's about revenue." Well, by that logic, you're accepting a really nice steak and a good weight room as compensation for tournament that's generating billions of dollars on the back of this unpaid labor.

When we talk about name, image, and likeness, there's a way that sometimes we talk about women, and we talk about Title IX. Women athletes don't stand to benefit from name, image, and likeness as well, and we know [crosstalk]

Tanzina: Amira, isn't Title IX compliance supposed to make sure these things don't happen?

Amira: It doesn't apply to the NCAA. There was a lawsuit back in '99, NCAA v. Smith and one of the things that that lawsuit did is provide cover to NCAA where, even though they take a lot of money from federally funded institutions, they are not a federally funded institution, and they are not under the purview of Title IX. Title IX still creates this thing that you have to reach this compliance, you have to reach at the school level, but when transferred to a postseason tournament, it doesn't have the same reach, which is one of the issues that you're seeing here is that a lot of what they do is "in good faith," but they don't have that same mandate as the schools would, to provide equity on the basis of the law.

Tanzina: We've got about a minute left, but I'm wondering, is there one thing that the NCAA could do today to remedy some of these issues with their women's teams?

Amira: Yes, stop making excuses, invest, understand that we need a new path forward, the ratings have been growing, viewership, all of this has been growing. The fact that at the end of the day, there's no revenue sharing, even with the ESPN package that the winner of the women's tournament will not walk away with a cent from this growing behemoth of an opportunity and tournament that we have here is just another example of how this system is quite exploitative.

They just need to do better. They need to put their money where their mouth is, stop painting equality on your courts, and stand up and actually provide a good experience for these women who've worked so hard to be here.

Tanzina: Amira Rose Davis is an assistant professor of history in African American studies at Penn State, and co-host of the Burn It All Down podcast. Amira, always great to have you on. Thank you.

Amira: Thank you.

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