Keep Them Separate

Back in March, the NCAA received a lot of criticism (and rightfully so) for the extreme differences in the conditions of the weight room (among other things) at the Men's Final Four and Women's Final Four.  That led the NCAA to do a thorough review of all its sports/championships and determine what changes should be implemented.  The committee has made its recommendations, and, frankly, some of them don't make much sense.

The biggest change they recommended was looking into holding the Men's and Women's Final Fours together in the same city.  The argument is that this would increase the exposure for the women's event.  In reality, however, the exact opposite would happen.  The Women's Final Four would end up being completely overshadowed by the men's.

Women's basketball is one of the highest-profile NCAA sports.  They need to take advantage of that and allow the Women's Final Four to be a showcase of the sport.  Combining it with the Men's Final Four may sound great in theory, but doing so wouldn't give the women the showcase they deserve.  Instead, they'd be treated as the warm-up act.  The undercard before the main event, playing on Friday and Sunday before the men go on Saturday and Monday.

Would there be a slight attendance bump for the women by combining the Final Fours?  Perhaps.  But are they gonna fill a 70,000-seat NFL stadium?  Probably not.  So, the NCAA would either need to curtain off sections or deal with the unpleasant aesthetic of thousands of empty seats.  Either one isn't a good look.  Especially when the women would sell out a smaller arena.

That may sound like a knock on the women's game, but it's not intended to be.  In fact, it speaks volumes to the popularity of the women's game that the Women's Final Four is regularly sold out.  Which clearly shows the event is capable of being a showcase all on its own.  They don't need the men to draw a crowd.  That's another reason not to combine the events.

Combining the Men's and Women's Final Fours would also take away one huge advantage the women have over the men.  Because the men play in a dome, they're limited to a rotation of the same 8-10 cities.  The Women's Final Four, however, can be held in pretty much any city.  While they sometimes play in a dome, as well (this year's Women's Final Four was at the Alamodome in San Antonio, for example), they can play in pretty much any city that has an NBA team.  And even some that don't (Columbus, Nashville and Tampa have all hosted in recent years).  Why not take advantage of that and continue moving the Women's Final Four around the country in a way that the men's can't?

While it wouldn't work in basketball, I'm not opposed to the idea of a combined championship in some other sports.  In sports like track & field, cross country and swimming, separating the NCAA Championships wouldn't make any sense!  But they also combined the rescheduled NCAA Soccer Championships in April-May very successfully.  I wouldn't be surprised to see a combined College Cup again in the future.  I'd also like to see what a combined Men's and Women's Lacrosse Final Four would look like.  I think that it could work very well in lacrosse, especially if they had a Fan Fest as a part of the weekend.

Which brings me to my other big issue with the committee's recommendations.  They suggested dropping the gender identifiers in the name of individual NCAA Championships.  Which, again, is just dumb.  And I'm not sure what it would accomplish, either.  If you drop the "Men's" and "Women's" identifiers, how are people supposed to know which one is which?

This is another point that was brought up among the Men's/Women's Final Four issues in March.  The argument then was, "Why is it 'Women's Final Four,' when the men's is just 'Final Four'?"  I agree with that point to a degree, but the solution shouldn't be to drop "Women's."  It should be to add "Men's."  Which would put basketball in line with every other sport where the NCAA sponsors championships on both the men's and women's side.

Those gender identifiers are necessary to differentiate the men's and women's championships.  They're different events.  They need to be recognized and treated as such.  The mere suggestion that gender identifiers need to be dropped would, once again, have the opposite effect.  Instead of distinguishing two distinct tournaments that crown two different champions, the lines would be blurred, leading to nothing but confusion.  How does that help anybody?

I'm also not sure where the idea of the "men's" and "women's" labels being a bad thing or somehow offensive came from, either.  Nobody has a problem with them in the Olympics, where they make it a point to distinguish between men's, women's and mixed events.  Not only that, the IOC requires that any new sport have both men's and women's events (at least), and they're very proud of the fact that Paris 2024 will be the first Olympics to have an equal number of men's and women's events. 

Speaking of the Olympics, another suggestion regarding NCAA Championships was made a few weeks ago that I think is a great idea.  The USOPC and the different U.S. sport federations have broached the subject of partnering with the NCAA in staging the championships.  The rationale is solid.  A majority of the U.S. Olympic team comes from the NCAA ranks, so it makes complete sense for the national federation to be invested in and want to be involved with the NCAA Championships.

Think of the possibilities that would create, too.  The first thing that comes to mind is the idea of NCAA Championships at National Team Training Centers.  That would give the NCAA Championships competitors access to the same world-class facilities and amenities as the members of the U.S. National Team.  That's an opportunity they might never get otherwise.  Likewise, it would increase their exposure to National Team coaches and staff.  And the co-branding opportunities would be a win-win for both the NCAA and the USOPC.

A change like that would be good and welcome.  But not every change is good.  Changes such as having the Men's and Women's Final Fours in the same city or dropping gender identifiers in the name of NCAA Championships wouldn't be.  Those would be changes for the sake of change.  And they would probably hurt more than they would help.