Athletic directors say compensating athletes could hurt women’s sports: survey

The majority of athletic directors in a new survey said that compensating college athletes would make it difficult to comply with federal gender equity rules.

According to an Associated Press survey released Thursday, 94 percent of athletic directors predicted it would be hard to comply with Title IX if schools start compensating athletes. 

More than 70 percent said that certain sports will lose funding or be cut altogether if schools offer payments to students. 

“Sharing revenue with student-athletes is not feasible. That only works if universities are then absolved of Title IX requirements,” one AD reportedly wrote in the survey. “Football revenue supports women’s golf, women’s tennis, women’s softball, women’s volleyball, women’s soccer, women’s track and field on this campus.”

The NCAA is on the verge of letting players sign individual sponsorship deals allowing them to profit off their name, image and likeness. There are already some states that are allowing players to do so. 

The AP reported that NCAA data shows men’s football and basketball are the biggest sources of revenue for most school sports programs.

“What little revenue 95 percent of institutions realize through revenue sports goes toward supporting other sports,” one AD wrote in response to the survey, according to the AP. “Paying those 5 percent of students will devastate the other teams that rely on that revenue to survive.”

The survey, which included 99 anonymous athletic directors, was taken before the NCAA faced backlash last month over the discrepancy between the men’s and women’s weight rooms supplied in tournament “bubbles.”

University of Oregon women’s basketball forward Sedona Prince’s TikTok about the issue went viral and the NCAA acknowledged it “fell short” on preparing the women’s facilities.