Donald Trump presented himself loudly as the protector of female athletes. So why does his administration prevent them from being paid as much as their male counterparts?
The Ministry of Education recently announced that the title IX, the federal law which obliges colleges to provide equal funding by player to male and female sports, does not apply to payments, image and resemblance paid directly to athletes of colleges and universities. This policy, which reverses a position adopted by the Biden administration, will reduce the college female athletes from a huge new source of funding that will come into play this year: next month, a federal judge is expected To approve a reaction regulations of $ 2.8 billion which, after years of dispute, will finally allow athletes to receive payments of name, image and resemblance of their school rather than through collectives outside of Nile, the version of the collegial sports of a Super CAP.
Schools that choose to oppose the regulations should have a salary ceiling of up to $ 20.5 million each to distribute to the players. Under the directives published in the last days of the Biden administration, they should have distributed this money between male and female athletes in proportion to their participation rates. Now, under Trump, this money is almost guaranteed to massively pour the male athletes, mainly football and basketball players. For example, the University of Georgia plans To give 75% of its income sharing to the football team, 15% in male basketball, 5% in women’s basketball and the remaining 5% to all other sports. Other large sports schools should follow a similar formula.
“Without a credible legal justification, the Biden Administration said that the zero agreements between schools and athlete students are similar to financial aid and should therefore be distributed proportionally between male and female athletes under title IX,” said Craig Train, interim assistant secretary to the Ministry of Education, said in a press release. “The assertion that title IX obliges schools and colleges to distribute income from student-athletes in proportion to considerations on gender equity and would require clear legal authority to support it.”
Indeed, in Trump, “protecting female sports” begins and ends with an idea: skipping transgender women from the competition. During his presidential campaign, Trump courted fans of the NFL and football with an ad, Kamala Harris advertisements for his positions on trans rights. Shortly after taking office, he followed his campaign promises by signing a decree prohibiting trans and girls from participating in sports. The White House presented order as “ensuring equal opportunities for women in sport”.
In reality, the order looks like a classic Trump mixture of maximum cultural cultural posture for a minimum tangible advantage. The president of the NCAA, Charlie Baker, testified before the congress in December that of the 510,000 athletes in competition in university sports, less than 10 were trans. (Baker did not indicate whether they were men or women.) Even at the level of young-sport, experts believe that the number of trans athletes is less than 100 nationally.
In comparison, the recent Nile directives of the Trump administration could affect thousands of colleges, deepening an already obvious disparity. A few exceptions, such as the gymnast of the State University of Louisiana Olivia Dunne, a feeling of social media that brand It is estimated that $ 4 million per year – colleges athletes found it difficult to keep up with their male counterparts in the new era of zero. Nile collectives are generally funded by rich boosters and donors who mainly care about basketball and male football. Even if the economic value of female sports has developed considerably in recent years, women still do not get the same attention or the same opportunities as men. Female sports receive About only about 15% of the total coverage of sports media.
Women fear not having many votes as income in their sports develops. In January, a group of more than 100 female division I athletes Letters sent To the commissioners of the Big Ten and the Southeast Conference to request a meeting and express their concerns concerning a variety of problems, in particular the disparity of the zero money between male and female athletes. So far, the commissioners have not accepted a meeting.
“My first impression is that the title IX is used to feeding culture and political ideological differences in our country,” said Ajhanai Keaton, deputy professor of sports management at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, the Isenberg management school. “If it is an educational company, there should be no questions that money should be distributed evenly between sexes in sport.”
Some would say that women unable to keep the pace of men in money are only the free market at work, given the undeniable popularity of football and male basketball. At first glance, a school like Georgia giving the majority of its income sharing to the football team is logical, because football has represented about three quarters of the Bulldogs’ $ 203 million in income Last year, the fifth largest number among the main university football programs. But the free market trend to strengthen existing inequalities is exactly the reason why laws like title IX exist.
Even before the rise of zero money, university sports did not manage to be up to the mandate of the law. According to a report Outings by the Government Accountability Office last year, women represent 56% of undergraduate students, but only 42% of athlete students. And in 2022, a USA today Sports report of division I concluded That for all $ 1 schools spent on travel, equipment and recruitment for male teams, they only spent 71 cents in women’s teams.
During the 2021 pandemic season, male and female basketball players played their March Madness tournament in isolated and isolated “bubbles”. Male players received a huge gymnasium supplied for top athletes, while women received only a few yoga carpets and a tiny rack for dumbbells. After the obvious disparities were castigated on social networks, the NCAA has instructed an external company to lead An equity examination. The injustice has proven to extend to the meal plan. “The portions were originally very small,” said an anonymous female coach in the report. “I did not question the male food team. I saw a buffet on Twitter … I would like to be in a buffet situation. »»
The NCAA apologized For the disparity of the weight room, but the point to remember was that even if the diffusion rights for women’s basketballs bring a estimated $ 65 million per year, the organization has always readily chosen to provide quality resources lower than female athletes.
When Trump signed his executive decree on transgender athletes, he made sure to wrap the east house from the White House with young girls. He did a good photo session. But the real political program of the administration will mean fewer opportunities for these girls, no more. If all of this is Trump’s idea to protect women, it’s just to say that female athletes are officially alone.