Women’s basketball coaches’ questions for new NCAA president: Will you treat us like a sport?

NEW YORK, NEW YORK - SEPTEMBER 19: Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker speaks at a forum during the opening of the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI), a meeting of international leaders that looks to help solve global problems, on September 19, 2022 in New York City. CGI, which hasn’t met since 2016, has assisted over 435 million people in more than 180 countries since it was established in 2005. The two-day event, which occurs as the United Nations General Assembly is in New York, will see dozens of world leaders and those working for change across the world.  (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
By Chantel Jennings, Ben Pickman and more
Mar 13, 2023

Over the last month, The Athletic has spoken with more than 30 women’s college basketball coaches about an array of topics from name, image and likeness to athletic directors to X’s and O’s. These coaches, who hail from power conferences and high mid-majors, were granted anonymity to allow them to speak openly without fear of retribution from their own programs or the NCAA. Throughout the week, we’ll share coaches’ thoughts on the most pressing issues in their sport. Though not every response to each question is included, answers represent all opinions expressed.

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It’s no secret that former NCAA president Mark Emmert — even before the weight room debacle during the bubble NCAA Tournament in 2021 — wasn’t well liked by many women’s college basketball coaches. That moment, when Oregon’s Sedona Prince posted on TikTok exposing the disparities between the men’s and women’s postseason facilities, went viral and brought a spotlight on how the NCAA had been treating its women’s hoops teams, but coaches and players felt the disrespect long before. So, to say some women’s basketball coaches are skeptical about what to expect from new incoming NCAA president Charlie Baker and his vision for the sport is a bit of an understatement.

So we picked the brains of coaches from across the nation about their hopes — and reservations — about Baker’s role.

What’s one question you’d like to ask incoming NCAA president Charlie Baker?

“I wouldn’t want to ask him anything because the NCAA is full of s—.”

“Why would you take that job? … Is there even going to be an NCAA in five years?”

Other coaches had more substantive questions about women’s basketball they’d want to ask Baker, and those fell largely into three categories: The future of women’s basketball and the NCAA; gender equity; and regulations surrounding name, image and likeness, and the transfer portal.

The future of women’s basketball and the NCAA

“I think that the model is going to shift in the next five years. And I think it’s going to totally change. I think conferences will change. I think governing bodies will change. So, I would just want to know: What is the big picture plan?”

“Is college athletics sustainable?”

“What is the landscape of this sport going to look like in five years — transfer portal, NIL, conference alignment, the tournament? Where are we going?”

“How are we going to evolve as an organization? … It feels like the more they strip away the rules, the less amateur we are. Are we a professional organization? Are we an amateur one? So how are we going to evolve?”

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“Where does he envision women’s basketball fitting into the sport in the future as it relates to men’s basketball and football? What is his vision? Are we all trying to move together? Actually, it’s probably just: What is going on with football and how will that impact us?”

No one thinks the role of NCAA president is an easy job, but women’s basketball coaches have plenty of legitimate gripes about how that role could’ve better served women’s basketball and women’s sports over the last few decades.

Two coaches brought up the unequal revenue distribution model and television contract, two issues that many believe would be the largest catalysts toward women’s basketball taking meaningful steps forward.

“When and how will the ESPN contract be bid out independently and how will a meaningful distribution model be coupled with that contract for women’s basketball?”

“When are you going to do units for women’s basketball?”

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NCAA missing a chance to gain both social and financial capital

Some background on why coaches are particularly curious about this: The television rights for the women’s NCAA Tournament have been packaged with 28 other NCAA championships and are costing ESPN only $34 million a year. However, in the Kaplan Report, an independent financial consultant estimated that the women’s tournament TV rights — if sold as a single entity — could fetch between $81 million to $112 million per year. Additionally, “units” are given to each conference for the number of appearances their men’s teams make during the NCAA Tournament, so a men’s team that gets to the second round brings two units to its conference while a men’s team that gets to the title game earns six units for its conference. These units translate into millions of dollars. However, the women’s appearances don’t count for anything in this way, meaning that a No. 16 seed that gets blown out in the first round of the men’s tournament is seen as far more valuable than South Carolina in the women’s tournament.

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Gender equity

“When are you going to treat women’s basketball as a sport?”

“What are we going to do about the inequalities between men’s and women’s basketball at the national level? How much assistance are you going to give Lynn Holzman?”

“Equity issues, definitely I would ask about that. How is that improving? What are some of the real changes that we’re doing? What’s the five-year plan?”

Given the missteps of Emmert and the NCAA, it’s no surprise that gender equity is at the front of mind for many coaches. Coaches wanted to know, specifically, how the sport would be given the same opportunities and investment as football and men’s basketball rather than remaining on a back burner.

Asking for specifics around gender-equity changes would be a prudent question, as would wondering about Holzman, who is the vice president for women’s basketball at the NCAA. Many coaches believe that the fact she reports to Dan Gavitt, who is senior VP of basketball and oversees men’s basketball, has put the sport at a disadvantage compared to men’s basketball within the NCAA because she hasn’t had a direct line to the NCAA president.

Regulations surrounding NIL and the transfer portal

“What kind of guard rails are you going to put up around the transfer portal and NIL?”

“What is the plan for NIL and how can the NCAA make this a level playing field?”

“What are the rules going to be around the NIL space?”

“Would you ever reconsider the portal? Would you go back to having kids needing to sit for a year?”

Though all three of these topics drew questions from coaches, this one had the slightest edge in terms of how often coaches brought up name, image and likeness, and the transfer portal. That’s not hugely surprising. While the future of the sport and gender equity are two umbrella issues for women’s basketball that impact everything in the sport, NIL and the transfer portal are two topics that directly impact the day-to-day lives of college coaches and women’s basketball programs.

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Several coaches over the past year have referred to the new era of NIL/transfer portal college sports as the “Wild West” in that the rules are fluid or differ from region to region, or that it’s all so new that it feels like the rules will need years to catch up to the action.

Most power conference coaches anticipate losing at least two players a year (if not more) to the transfer portal, which means that they then in turn need to look to recruit transfers in order to replenish their team with talent and depth. What has made these changes most drastic for most programs is how quickly some of the changes have come, often as the NCAA has reacted to governmental actions.

NIL has been such a big topic in college sports that one of our polls this week focuses exclusively on the topic, but NIL was also one area that several coaches wanted to bring up to Baker. Athletes have been able to put together NIL deals in a multitude of ways — through their personal deals with major brand partnerships like Nike and Gatorade, through their own brands on social media platforms and through collectives, which are often donor groups based around a university that provide deals to specific athletes or teams.

NIL already has changed the recruiting space, and coaches want to know how Baker plans to institute some level of NCAA-wide regulation around it. Right now, with rules that differ by state and a lack of transparency, a lot of coaches just feel as though they’re in the dark when it comes to NIL despite the fact that it’s now a topic that comes up in most recruiting conversations.

These questions don’t exist in just women’s basketball. They’re issues facing every sport across the NCAA. And Baker is walking into the NCAA presidency at a time when there are many questions to answer, including whether the organization he runs will even exist in the future. But for as long as the NCAA does exist, women’s college basketball coaches are going to continue to fight for representation and equality on the national stage.

(Photo of Charlie Baker: Spencer Platt / Getty Images)

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