{"id":130092,"date":"2021-11-03T08:00:59","date_gmt":"2021-11-03T13:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/?p=130092"},"modified":"2021-11-02T22:23:22","modified_gmt":"2021-11-03T03:23:22","slug":"ncaa-division-i-womens-hockey-wednesday-women-with-guest-gabriella-fundaro-frozen-four-wishes-and-broadcasting-dreams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/2021\/11\/03\/ncaa-division-i-womens-hockey-wednesday-women-with-guest-gabriella-fundaro-frozen-four-wishes-and-broadcasting-dreams\/","title":{"rendered":"NCAA Division I Women\u2019s Hockey: Wednesday Women with guest Gabriella Fundaro – Frozen Four wishes and broadcasting dreams"},"content":{"rendered":"
Nicole:<\/b> Halloween may be over, but we\u2019ve got a special treat this week as Gabriella Fundaro joins me as a Guest Contributor to Wednesday Women. Gabs writes about women\u2019s college hockey at The Ice Garden and has been covering the sport for various outlets for 10 years.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Gabs <\/span><\/a>and<\/span> I <\/span><\/a>both wrote this week about the <\/span>NCAA Gender Equity Review report<\/span><\/a> that came out on Monday. The report detailed the many differences in the way the NCAA supports men\u2019s and women\u2019s championships, from signage and advertising to differences in tournament selection protocol. It\u2019s all required reading as far as I\u2019m concerned, but she and I also agreed there was plenty more to talk about than what either of us could cover in a single article.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n This review came about after women\u2019s basketball players took to social media to show the inadequate set up they were provided in their championship bubble. Those posts went viral and forced the NCAA to respond because the noise became too loud to ignore.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The inequities that exist between men\u2019s and women\u2019s hockey aren\u2019t new, but the sport hasn\u2019t had a moment like that where people with enough clout pay attention and join the fight. The report showed how the NCAA had already failed to follow through on internal reviews of places they were falling short, so I\u2019m not particularly convinced that anything will come out of this, either.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I said on Twitter after it was released that I wish there had been a more deliberate roll out of the information the report contained. It would have been super impactful if each day they released the details of specific sports so that the headlines every day for a week were about the ways the NCAA was failing its athletes. The impact of seeing disparate spending figures, staffing and promotion would have been really impactful.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n With the report coming out all at once, each individual sport covered the issues and information relevant to them, but I feel like we missed out on an opportunity to have a much bigger impact.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n We\u2019ve both been to numerous Frozen Fours, so none of this was new information to either of us, but Gabs, I wondered if any one piece of data surprised or stood out to you?<\/span><\/p>\n Gabs<\/b>: I think I was most surprised by the review\u2019s finding that sports that produce the most revenue on one side (all men\u2019s championships) feature the deepest inequities for their women\u2019s counterparts–meaning that women\u2019s hockey players are facing some of the greatest resource disparities.<\/span><\/p>\n I\u2019m slightly confused by the NCAA\u2019s logic here. No athlete should have to suffer through fewer resources and subpar playing experiences just because their sports don\u2019t churn up enough cash, but from a purely business perspective, the NCAA appears to be hampering itself. If you can make money off of a men\u2019s tournament–one that is by nature well-established and has had decades upon decades to grow–it stands to reason there\u2019s potential for that sport\u2019s women\u2019s tournament to make money as well, with more investment and time to grow.<\/span><\/p>\n Instead, the NCAA has chosen to compound the disparities that already exist by investing more resources and dollars into sports that are already successful–primarily men\u2019s sports–and capping those same resources for sports that are still growing. That includes women\u2019s ice hockey.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I guess I was also surprised to learn that the disparities were so great for women\u2019s ice hockey, compared to other sports. I always thought, in the back of my mind, that the smaller resource pool and sparser promotions were due to the nature of hockey in general. It\u2019s a pretty niche sport, even on the men\u2019s side. But it turns out the experiences for folks involved in NCAA men\u2019s hockey and NCAA women\u2019s hockey are starkly different.<\/span><\/p>\n The shame of it is that NCAA women\u2019s hockey will never be able to grow unless those inequities are addressed. The review spells this out pretty plainly (and we\u2019ve of course seen this firsthand at Frozen Fours), but the Division I men\u2019s Frozen Four and Division I women\u2019s Frozen Four are held in arenas of very different sizes. It makes sense that more resources are needed to run a tournament in an NHL arena compared to an on-campus rink (the report notes this might explain the much larger budget for signage for the men\u2019s championship), but if you continuously hamper women\u2019s hockey by holding it in smaller arenas with fewer promotions, then how do you expect it to ever produce revenue for you? Is there an organization in the world that would expect to see the same return on investment on budgets of $4.2 million and $656,827?<\/span><\/p>\n The report expressed reason for optimism based on \u201cthe NCAA\u2019s recent efforts\u201d. Phase I of the review was released a few weeks ago; following that initial report, the NCAA took a few steps already to address some glaring inequities. That\u2019s all well and good. But as you mentioned, Nicole, the NCAA only agreed to launch an independent review of its championships after women\u2019s basketball players took it upon themselves to showcase the disparities live from their March Madness bubble.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I\u2019m going to be much more cautious about my optimism, knowing that. Women\u2019s basketball players never should have been faced with that burden–nor should any athlete in the future. Yet I fear that\u2019s the only meaningful way to garner mainstream attention and hold the NCAA to account. I hope that NCAA administrators will do what\u2019s right and address some of the things called out in the ice hockey case study immediately, without women\u2019s hockey players needing to pick up the burden themselves.<\/span><\/p>\n Beyond just straight budgetary numbers, the areas to address are aplenty. I\u2019m curious, is there anything in particular you\u2019d want the NCAA to change or fix immediately in regards to the women\u2019s ice hockey tournament (whether it was explicitly mentioned in the report or not)?<\/span><\/p>\n Nicole:<\/b> Well I could (and probably should) write a whole column about this. So many of my thoughts and ideas kind of inform and rely on other things, so I\u2019m going to try to get this in some semblance of order, but my apologies in advance if things get a little convoluted.<\/span><\/p>\n It was a step forward to have the National Championship game televised on ESPN this year, but the first semifinal was only streamed on ESPN+ and the quarterfinals are streamed on NCAA.com with dubious quality of video, audio and commentary. There are a total of seven games in this tournament and there\u2019s no way that anyone that\u2019s not already a fan is watching most of them.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Additionally, the games that were televised featured commentary that was rudimentary at best. Just because someone knows hockey doesn\u2019t mean they know women\u2019s college hockey. I was appreciative that ESPN had some articles online leading up to the games this year, but what they published had numerous errors. And the broadcasters used those articles are part of their prep, so they just repeated the wrong information. The entire broadcast was perfectly fine, but in a year when it finally reached a bigger audience, there was an opportunity to really showcase the sport and the teams. It is just so disappointing to know how many great stories and players there are and to see the same five facts about the Patty Kaz and the coaches get trotted out.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I just tried to find information about this year\u2019s tournament, and couldn\u2019t, no matter how many different ways I Googled it. Tickets are already on sale for the men\u2019s tournament and the championship home page has link after link with information. The women\u2019s page has a tiny sidebar and the links take you to general NCAA pages that don\u2019t actually have anything about women\u2019s hockey on them.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The men\u2019s tournament is a destination that ends up basically being a men\u2019s college hockey convention. It\u2019s a celebration of the game as people buy tickets and plan to go whether or not their team will be there. It would be amazing to have even a sliver of that kind of atmosphere at the women\u2019s tournament. The conference commissioners don\u2019t even go to the women\u2019s championship because they are all at the men\u2019s conference tournaments that happen the same weekend. I have no idea how anyone thinks this sport can grow when it feels like even the people that are paid to care, just don\u2019t. It\u2019s so disheartening and adds to the feeling that the women are an afterthought.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n As there are rules about the size of the arena to be used, the women\u2019s tournament has been relegated to a small handful of campus sites and unfortunately, many of those are simply not easily accessible. Minneapolis has hosted a number of tournaments, but the rest have been held in much smaller towns. Where the women play this year in State College, PA, the men are in Boston. The past few years, the women have played in Erie, PA, Hamden, CT and Durham, NH. It\u2019s difficult and expensive for me to get there to cover the games, so I can\u2019t imagine it\u2019s any easier for fans or people new to the game.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Before we move on, did I miss anything you\u2019d like to see changed?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Moving into current action, the Ivy League schools have all started their seasons, so we\u2019re finally all back on the ice, which feels like such a blessing. We can talk about specific teams, but I also wanted to ask about your take on the season so far and what teams you\u2019ve been keeping an eye on.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Gabs<\/b>: There are a few things on my list, although you touched on most of the big ones! You hit the nail on the head about the two different atmospheres we\u2019re dealing with; a \u201cmen\u2019s hockey convention\u201d is a very apt description for the men\u2019s Frozen Four. The location is definitely a huge part of that. Men\u2019s Frozen Fours have even been held in places where there is no Division I college hockey team; Tampa in 2016 comes to mind.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n