Those kinds of comparative figures were often used to justify, in one way or another, the gargantuan television contract that CBS and Turner paid for the men’s N.C.A.A. basketball championship and the pittance that ESPN paid for the women’s tournament, which was packaged with the rest of the channel’s N.C.A.A. sports deals. It was why the men got to use the March Madness branding and the women were not allowed.
It was why the phrase “college basketball” always meant men’s college basketball, why men were always the default. It was why the Final Four was aired on network television, whereas the women’s final was on cable. It was why the weight room for the women at the 2021 N.C.A.A. tournament consisted of a stack of hand weights and a few yoga mats and the men were set up with a huge array of machine