N.J. representative presses new NCAA president on equity

New NCAA president Charlie Baker made it barely a week before the first public Congressional requests to reform college sports started to land in his inbox.

Rep. Mikie Sherrill, D-N.J., sent a letter to the new leader of college sports this week asking for his help in improving the gender equity differences in men’s and women’s basketball.

Baker, the former governor of Massachusetts, was hired in part for his political experience in a time when NCAA leaders are hoping Congress will help them regain some control of a rapidly changing business model and fend off a steady onslaught of legal challenges to amateurism. Baker told ESPN in an introductory interview last week that he knew he would have to come to Capitol Hill with an open mind to make progress on any federal legislation related to college sports.

Sherrill wrote in her letter that she was concerned that the NCAA has yet to implement many of the recommendations made in a third-party review of gender inequities in how the NCAA manages its marquee basketball tournaments and men’s and women’s sports in general. The report, completed by the Kaplan Hecker & Fink law firm, was commissioned after women’s basketball players highlighted major differences between the two tournaments on social media. The NCAA has since made several changes to it’s women’s tournament, but Sherrill said much more needs to be done.

“It is my sincere hope that under your new leadership, the NCAA can truly live up to the spirit of Title IX,” Sherrill said. “I stand ready to partner with you in these efforts and am requesting to meet with you during your first 100 days so that we may discuss the path forward to addressing gender inequities within the NCAA.”

Baker officially started his tenure March 1. He said he also intends to speak to each of the NCAA’s nearly 100 conferences during his first 100 days.

Sherrill shared some specific issues that she hoped Baker could implement quickly. They include: Changing the NCAA’s leadership structure to put the vice president in charge of women’s basketball on equal footing with her men’s basketball counterpart; providing financial incentives for teams that win games in the women’s tournament similar to those that exist for the men; and seeking ways to increase the revenue produced by women’s basketball by adding transparency to their TV rights negotiations and giving women’s sports more ability to negotiate with sponsors separate from the men’s tournament.

NCAA leaders are…