Lytle: Pay-to-play postseason women's basketball another NCAA embarrassment

Kevin Lytle, Fort Collins Coloradoan
·5 min read
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The CSU women's basketball team is playing in the WNIT, with a first-round game Thursday night at Northern Iowa.
The CSU women's basketball team is playing in the WNIT, with a first-round game Thursday night at Northern Iowa.

One of the best college basketball players in the country paid for the chance to keep playing this postseason.

No, the honorable mention All-American McKenna Hofschild doesn’t directly have to put in a deposit to play this postseason, but the inclusion of the team requires a significant financial commitment from Colorado State athletics.

Hofschild and the CSU women’s basketball team accepted an invite to the WNIT, the secondary event to the NCAA Tournament. While Hofschild didn't play in CSU's game Thursday (lower-body injury, per the radio broadcast), the pay-to-play problem still stands.

On the men’s side, the NIT is a fairly prestigious event, with costs covered by the NCAA and strong television support (CSU’s men’s team made the NIT Final Four in 2021).

The NCAA doesn’t run the WNIT (yet). Instead, it’s operated by Fort Collins-based Triple Crown Sports.

The 64-team event is pay-to-play, meaning that strong teams like the Rams (20-11 heading into Thursday's loss to Northern Iowa) faced an awkward decision to either pay a big chunk of money or end their season without postseason play if they missed the 64-team NCAA Tournament.

It's a decision that the 100 NCAA Division I men's teams invited to the NCAA and NIT tournaments don't have to face. For all the NCAA's claims about its commitment to provide female athletes equal opportunity, there's no denying the inequality faced by those 36 women's teams paying for something their male counterparts enjoy for free.

The cost for CSU to play Thursday at Northern Iowa is roughly $20,000 to $25,000 (including entry to the tournament, travel, etc.), athletic director Joe Parker told me this week. CSU is in the WNIT for the second year in a row and fourth time since 2017.

Parker said the money will likely come from several areas, from sport-specific funds and even fundraising from boosters. Think about that: a team having to raise its own money to play in a postseason tournament.

Fans shouldn’t have to help a team pay to play, yet here we are. This team deserves better than to be asked to pay its way into the tournament. As Parker said by saying booster funds could be used, and several sources confirmed, the team was asked to pay for itself.

A team can surely feel it should be a no-problem decision to play. Bean counters can be justified in being wary of the costs to play in a second-choice tournament.

It’s just another example of how slow the NCAA is to actually act on equality. The overlords will finally take over the women's secondary tournament next year, Parker said. That’s one step in the right direction, but, per usual, much later than it should have been taken.

Triple Crown started the postseason WNIT in 1998, filling one of the many opportunity gaps the NCAA left wide open. In many ways, it’s been a service to have this tournament available and Triple Crown is not to blame for running a tournament as as a for-profit business.

Still, it should be an NCAA event. Teams must pay to host or pay to travel. An NCAA-run 32-team tournament to mirror the men’s side (with costs covered) is what is needed. Along with that, prize money for advancing needs to be a part of the package.

This week provides yet another example of the mistreatment of women’s college basketball by the NCAA. Unfortunately, you don't have to look far for other examples.

These are embarrassing missteps from the NCAA. None of those would ever happen on the men’s side.

Parker said it’s unlikely that future CSU teams will pay to play in postseason tournaments such as the third-tier College Basketball Invitational on the men's side.

“I’m thankful that it’s going to be managed by the NCAA. There’s still going to be these pay-to-participate opportunities. As a department, our attitude is ... if we don’t make the NCAA Tournament and we don’t make the NIT equivalent for men and women in the future, it’s going to be really hard to justify spending money to continue play if you haven’t earned the right to continue postseason play," Parker said. "What have you earned if you have to pay for it?"

That's a good question for the NCAA to consider. If the CSU women are good enough to qualify for a secondary (NIT-style) tournament, the decision to play shouldn't come with an invoice.

The NCAA can pass out all the hoodies, T-shirts and stickers it wants to celebrate Title IX, but those trinkets feel hollow when member schools' women's teams have to raise their own funds to play in the postseason.

Follow sports reporter Kevin Lytle on Twitter and Instagram @Kevin_Lytle.

This article originally appeared on Fort Collins Coloradoan: NCAA embarrasses itself with pay-to-play women’s basketball postseason