Don’t Believe Everything That You Read

Yesterday the Women’s Sports Foundation released a report claiming that male athletes haven’t been harmed by enforcement of Title IX. To say the least, the folks at the College Sports Council are more than a little bit flummoxed by that conclusion, given that we came to much the opposite conclusion back in 2007.

Here’s a statement from Eric Pearson, CSC Chairman:

The Women’s Sports Foundation report, “Who’s Playing College Sports? Money, Race and Gender,” is a flawed study that relies on incomplete data.

In 2007 the College Sports Council conducted a comprehensive longitudinal study of NCAA Participation Data, which revealed opposite conclusions compared to the WSF report.

Among the highlights in the CSC’s study are:

• More than 2,200 men’s athletic teams were eliminated since 1981 – a consistent, declining trend of 17 percent.

• Since 1995, the average number of male teams per school dropped to less than 7.8 per school while the number of female teams per school has rose to more than 8.7 per school.

• Some of the sports that have been hardest hit include track, swimming, wrestling and tennis.

Eric and others are parsing the report now, so we’ll have more details later.

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