As the Super Bowl draws near and we get ready to crown a new champion of the NFL, don't forget how the NCAA has not only failed to provide its fans with a much desired football playoff, they have also failed to comply with Title IX in the process.
On June 23, 1972, the Supreme Court ruled "No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance..."
Title IX was designed to bring about equal opportunity to females at a time in which males were being rewarded at their expense. Among the changes ushered in under Title IX were equal opportunities, facilities, and money for female athletic programs, which for decades had to settle for table scraps.
Today, colleges have to offer an equal number of athletic scholarships to males and females as part of their compliance to the law. This has resulted in a boom for female athletic programs at the high school and college levels while causing many schools to cut back or eliminate some male programs.
Football is the cash cow of NCAA Division I athletics but it also uses up the most scholarships of any program, as many as 85 at a time. Colleges with major football programs now offer many female sports that lose money but provide females with an equal number of athletic scholarships. Many colleges offer female sports like wrestling, golf, gymnastics, and water polo even though they continually lose money each year just so they comply with Title IX. A profitable football program will more than pick up the cost of those sports.
That's all well and good. Women deserve the same athletic opportunities as men and it is not their fault if the public has not embraced their sports to the level they have with football. However, it should also be pointed out that all female college athletic programs and all male athletic programs, except for one, share something in common. Their national champion is decided as a result of a playoff system. The lone NCAA Division I sport that does not have a playoff system is football. In fact, it is the only college sport that does not have a playoff. Even the lower division colleges crown their football champion after a playoff.
Why then is the NCAA allowed to violate Title IX? The courts claim there is no proof the NCAA uses any of the federal funds it receives to determine who their national champions are. That may be true. However, it is not true of its member colleges which also receive federal funds and as such should not be able to deny any student male or female, "the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education system..."
Male student athletes who participate in Division I football are just as entitled to a playoff system as their female counterparts who play volleyball or soccer. To not offer one is to discriminate on the basis of gender which is a direct violation of Title IX.
I believe if there is going to be a true playoff system in Division I college football, it will require participating athletes to begin suing their university for failing to comply with Title IX. As these lawsuits begin to mount, colleges will have to endure the cost of court fights for something the public wants but the colleges will not offer. Some universities may have to decide whether or not to drop football which would then kill most of the other athletic programs on campus since most operate at a loss. They can not afford to pay 85 football players on scholarship damages rewarded by the courts or pay the cost of beginning a new organization to oversee their sports while offering a playoff system.
So university presidents will have to pressure the leaders of the NCAA to drop their ridiculous Bowl Championship Series and replace it with a playoff system. It is the only way colleges can continue to receive the hugesums of money brought in by a football program while giving the public what it wants and what the student athletes are entitled to under Title IX.
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