U-M Loses $7M to Women's Sports

by Scott Behnan
In September 4, 1999, U-M students, alumni, and loyal fans witnessed a fantastic athletic event: U-M’s football team came from behind to defeat Notre Dame 26-22 in one of the most exciting games in college football history. In addition, an all-time NCAA record crowd of 111,523 packed into “The Big House,” otherwise known as Michigan Stadium — and since some of the crowd on hand paid the University as much as $35.00 per ticket, this along with other home games has been a massive source of revenue for our university. Specifically, athletic department figures indicate that during the 1997 season, the football program grossed over $22 million in revenue — and considering its nearly $8 million in expenses, this team earned an astounding profit of over $14 million. Now, with all expenses paid, students must wonder: what is done with this tremendous surplus? Surprisingly, this surplus neither rewards the 121 football players for national championships nor does it promote athletics for the 24 thousand undergraduate students. Instead, it pays for a select group of 529 students belonging to mostly women’s varsity teams, which squander millions every year.

Although nearly all students lack the physical skill to play in a Rose Bowl, many enjoy a wide variety of sports for fitness, competition, or fun — regardless of ability. But how could 529 so-called varsity athletes in sports like rowing and field hockey be entitled to millions of dollars, which they did not earn? The answer to this question can be found in a 1972 law passed by Congress known as Title IX.

As passed in 1972, Title IX simply states: “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjugated to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.” Although there is no mention of quotas for women’s teams and preferential treatment for female athletes as reparation for past discrimination, several departments like the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) in the federal bureaucracy demanded that universities across the country to achieve a 60%-40% male-female participation in athletics. One of the many examples of the bureaucracy’s war on male athletes includes the “Big Ten Conference’s Gender Equity Policy” adopted by the Council of Presidents. As a result of this policy, institutions have added 18 new women’s sports, while dropping five men’s sports to achieve the specificied male-female proportion. In addition, some institutions have announced plans to add nine women’s sports, bringing the total to 27 new women’s sports by 2000-01 — further shrinking participation for men. The U-M has far surpassed the required quotas: during 1998-99 school year, 51% of varsity athletes were males, while 49% were females. In fact, the number of varsity sports for women (12) now exceeds that of men (11).

However, while federal quotas have ordered equivalent participation and athletic scholarships for men and women, statistics from the U-M’s athletic department indicate that men crush women in overall revenue. Fiscal totals indicate that during the 1997-98 year, the 10 men’s teams combined for revenue of almost $29 million, grossing a profit of $14,546,392. (In fairness, the football and men’s basketball teams were the only ones to earn a profit, and they accounted for 96.5% of the men’s revenue.) Contrarily, the 11 women’s teams brought in a meager $211,164, while sporting expenses of over $7 million.

Of course, even men’s sports like the swim team and the track team lose money, and 80 percent of all college football teams across the country also lose money. So perhaps there is a case for funding women sports such as like women’s basketball and women’s track. However, several questions still arise regarding Title IX policies. For example, although women do play sports, is it fair for universities to enforce equal participation despite that men generally have more interest in competitive sports than women do? Biologically, male athletes are generally more powerful (i.e. speed, strength) because they are able to develop more muscle mass per unit volume of body weight due to the male hormone androgen. Another pressing issue regards the dropping of men’s sports for creation of new women’s sports like equestrian and synchronized swimming to reach quotas. One must also remember that this University is a public school, and tax dollars also fund women’s teams. In other words, a coal miner living in the upper peninsula struggling to support a family is punished through expropriated tax dollars so that a girl can boot a soccer ball through a mud puddle.

One of the leading critics of Title IX is a women’s organization, the Independent Women’s Forum (IWF). In a policy analysis of Title IX, the organization states that “by serving as the blunt instrument wielded by federal judges and bureaucrats in the name of gender equity, Title IX demeans the legitimate athletic accomplishments of women.”

It further states, “And by demanding that women participate in athletics at the same rate as men under the false banner of ‘proportionality,’ it not only ignores legitimate differences between men and women, but legitimate differences among women. We look to ourselves, not the government, to know the difference.”

IWF also points out that Title IX imposes harsh consequences on minority men, especially African-American males. Because men’s teams are being capped, black men are facing a disproportionate number of the cuts. Specifically, some universities have already capped men’s basketball teams at 13 scholarships while women’s basketball teams carry 15 scholarships. According to IWF, “The elimination of scholarships for minority males is clearing the way for white females — some of who have never played team sports — to take athletic scholarships they may not need or may not have pursued.”

In a telephone interview, Kimberly Schuld said that it is appropriate for women’s athletic teams to use revenue earned by the football program to pay for their expenses, since men’s teams like golf and hockey also cannot earn sufficient revenue to account for expenses. However, Ms. Schuld added, a problem arises “when universities create new varsity sports such as equestrian and rowing to equal men in participation. In rowing, in which there are almost no high school programs, they are picking girls out of the cafeteria just for a quota.”

One can find evidence of Ms. Schuld’s claim on the website for U-M’s women’s rowing or “Crew” team. The site explicitly states, “We want to stress that you do NOT need previous rowing experience. 80% of our current rowers had never set foot in a rowing shell before coming to college, and 50% of those rowers are now on athletic scholarships.” The fact that a basketball star who has endured over 10 years of strenuous basketball camps and various leagues, and a freshman girl who has never held a paddle in her life, are both considered varsity athletes raises many questions to universities across the nation.

One recent sporting event that reintroduced the controversy over Title IX was the U.S. women’s world cup victory. After the game for example, many remember President Bill Clinton running through the locker room crediting Title IX for the surging success and interest in women’s soccer across the nation. Ms. Schuld, who begs to differ commented, “The world cup was a fantastic athletic event, but I deplore the use of the victory to make these girls politicians. No one noticed their victory in 1995, and most of these girls developed in community and national leagues not affected by Title IX.”

Percy Bates, Ph.D, a school of education professor who specializes in sports issues dealing with women and minorities, believes that the University should not pay its football players with the revenue that they generate. “I believe that a full scholarship is equal to payment, and if you are a football player and you want to be paid, then you should play for the Detroit Lions. Our main business at this University is to produce college degrees.”

As for the revenue discrepancy between men’s and women’s teams, Dr. Bates pointed out that at the women’s basketball team at the University of Iowa has earned more revenue than the men’s team in the past. When asked about the current trend due to Title IX of cutting men’s sports and creating new ones for women, he replied, “We simply have no choice but to provide the same opportunities for women and men in athletics.” MR