To say that female athletes have expanded opportunities to participate in collegiate athletics would be an understatement of the effect of Title IX legislation.
Participation in female sports has increased on campuses throughout the United States.
But has enforcement of legislation come with a price?
As expenses soar, operating expenses are forcing athletics departments to dig deep into their wallets to come up with money for all of these newly created sports.
According to an article published May 18, 2001 in the Chronicle for Higher Education, athletics department budgets were on average $11.2 million for Division I institutions, in 1999-2000.
As such, a new trend is creeping into athletics budgets'focused attention on revenue-generating sports.
| Fundamentals Title IX at UW The female perspective Media impact The football question |
Football dominates any discussion of revenues and expenses in intercollegiate athletics, particularly Division I athletics. In order for institutions to make money, universities must have solid football teams that can play in bowl games. They will do everything possible to be competitive in sports that people care about, such as football, men's basketball, women's volleyball and women's basketball at Wisconsin.
The real prize for teams and conferences is the Bowl Championship Series, a series of four bowls that involve six major conferences'Big Ten, Southeastern, Big 12, Pac-10, Big East and Atlantic Coast'that generate millions of dollars from television broadcasts and corporate sponsorship.
""Our constituencies demand that if we're going to sponsor some [sport], we're going to be competitive at the national level,"" said James G. Worley, associate athletics director at the University of Texas at Austin in the same article. ""I don't think our U.T. family would be satisfied with anything else.""
For UW-Madison there is no difference in philosophy, as the university has focused its attention on its major revenue-generating sport'football.
According to the Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act that Wisconsin sent out in 1997-'98, the football program spent $5,544,172, or roughly 8.8 percent of the total amount spent by the athletics department. By 2000-'01, the university had increased its budget for football to $8,500,836, or roughly 19.6 percent of the total spent.
However, expenses are rising faster than revenues at 149 of the 321 Division I institutions. And even at colleges where revenues are up, they won't last forever, athletics directors say. Television contracts have grown as far as they're going to, and ticket revenue is hitting its peak, yet costs continue to grow for revenue and nonrevenue sports alike.
This philosophy has also shifted focus away from small-revenue sports, both male and female.
The economic factors have changed the debate over Title IX. Colleges are doing everything they can to preserve their chances of hitting the jackpot by getting their football teams to bowl games and their basketball squads to the Final Four.
