Imaginary Bracket: What If Spending More on Women’s Sports Meant NCAA Tourney Wins?

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While Title IX has brought more opportunities for women in college athletics, the money still flows primarily to the men’s side of things. Looking at women’s athletic funding as a percentage of men’s athletic funding punishes football schools in a big way, since football teams tend to cost much more than others, and no schools have a women’s football team. Among BCS schools, Stanford does best—women’s teams receive 63 percent of the funding that men’s teams get. Oklahoma State, where women’s teams receive less than 23 percent of the funding men’s teams do, lags well behind the rest of the pack. The championship game brings together two DC teams that both spend more on women’s athletics than men’s, with American winning out by a single percentage point.

See what would happen if the richest teams won every tourney game.

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“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things they don’t like—which is most things that are true.

No one gets to tell Mother Jones what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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