Spending Disparities

By CHARLOTTE VARNES daily senior staffer @charvarnes11

Northwestern women’s basketball associate head coach Tangela Smith made headlines as a high school player. A Chicago native, Smith’s prowess on the court earned All-American honors.

When it came time for her recruiting process, it wasn’t just the talented team that drew Smith to playing at Iowa.

“There was a woman head coach, (who was) like a mother figure away from home,” Smith said. “(Women coaches) are people players can look up to.”

Now, five years into her time at NU, Smith is one of three women coaches on the sidelines and one of two women of color. Yet, 50 years after the passage of Title IX, significant disparities remain for women and people of color in the sports coaching world.

Women hold just 41.3% of head coaching positions in Division I women’s sports, according to 2021 data from the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport. Among assistant coaches across Division I women’s athletics, only 47.2% are women and less than 30% are people of color.

For Smith, the solution to national coaching disparities is an easy one.

“Just hire (women),” Smith said. “It’s as simple as that. There are a lot of great women out there who can coach the game of basketball.”

Women’s basketball director of operations Karen Stack Umlauf (Communication ‘83) noted the importance of encouraging women to embrace the journey of coaching. She said she has a niece playing a Division I sport who has realized over the course of her college career that she might enjoy coaching instead of going into medicine.

At NU, the percentage of women head coaches is higher than the national rate at 63.6%, as seven of the 11 varsity women’s sports are coached by women. Among women’s assistant coaches, NU is similar to the national average at 48%. But the racial disparities are especially stark: no head coaches of NU women’s sports are people of color, compared to 17.8% nationally.

Field hockey coach Tracey Fuchs recalled fighting for opportunities to compete with boys when she was younger. Now, she leads a Division I program in a sport that ranks among the “highest percentages” of having women coaches.

Beyond women leading women’s sports programs, Fuchs said it’s important that women break into the men’s sports world as well.

“Women should be coaching men’s soccer (and) basketball,” Fuchs said. “I mean, why can’t they coach baseball? We have a lot of men’s baseball coaches coaching softball. It’s just that people haven’t seen it… Having that diversity on any staff is only going to help your program.”

There is just one woman who is the head coach of an NU men’s program: Katie Robinson of swimming and diving. But having just one woman coaching a men’s sport puts NU well above the national average. With Robinson at the helm of swimming and diving, NU has an average of 12.5% women head coaches of men’s sports. Nationally, the average is 4.5%.

Stack Umlauf made history as the first female assistant coach in the Chicago Bulls organization. During her time with the Bulls, she said few women came to ask her about coaching roles. Instead, most wanted to talk with her about marketing.

Stack Umlauf said her experience with the Bulls taught her that showing interest in coaching men’s sports can be a solution in itself. She spent decades with the organization before joining the coaching staff. When she did, some of her colleagues asked her why she hadn’t told them about her desire to join the staff sooner.

Returning to the college game at NU for the first time in decades, Stack Umlauf said gender coaching disparities in men’s basketball have caught her attention.

“It’s always struck me that there aren’t more (women coaching men’s programs), with how progressive we are in society,” Stack Umlauf said. “That’s got to improve. The more diversity you have, the better it is for (everyone’s) experience.”

cvarnes@u.northwestern.edu

Breaking down NU’s athletic spending by gender

By KATE WALTER daily senior staffer @katewalter03

Title IX requires that any educational institution receiveing federal funding cannot discriminate in activities or programs, including athletics, on the basis of sex.

However, the legislation does not require equal funding for women’s and men’s college athletics. It only requires equal spending toward athletic scholarships, where schools must fund scholarships in proportion to the participation of men and women in the athletics programs. Beyond that, “treatment” and “benefits” for male and female athletes must be “equitable,” with no specific amount of spending required.

Conducted by the U.S. Department of Education, the Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act Survey, is a mandatory study for any educational higher education institution that receives federal student aid.

The survey analyzes and compares the spending of men’s and women’s college athletics programs.

Here are takeaways from Northwestern’s spending in athletics from the reporting year of Sept. 9, 2020 to Aug. 31, 2021. The analysis notes that the COVID-19 pandemic may have impacted the revenues and expenses for the reported year.

Revenues and Expenses

The analysis shows that the total revenues of Northwestern men’s varsity teams in the reported year are around $56 million. Football’s total revenue is around $43 million, accounting for 76% of the total revenue for men’s sports and 64% for both men’s and women’s teams.

The total revenue of women’s varsity teams is $10.5 million. Women’s basketball accounts for over $1.2 million of the total women’s teams revenue, or around 11%,. The remaining sports account for $9.3 million.

Basketball is the only sport where both men’s and women’s teams revenues and expenses are reported individually. The men’s basketball team’s total expenses are $7.5 million, and the women’s basketball team’s total expenses are $3.9 million — 51% of the total men’s team expenses.

The revenue of the men’s basketball team in the 2020-2021 year is $8.8 million, while the women’s team is $1.3 million.

During the 2020-21 season, NU’s men’s basketball team finished with a 9-15 record, finding itself in the bottom three in Big Ten standings. The women’s team record that season was 16-9, finishing in the top five of conference standings.

These numbers are consistent with overall spending trends in college athletics. According to a June NCAA report, athletic departments in Division I schools spend two times more on men’s sports than on women’s sports, as reflected in the data for NU.

Operating Expenses by Team

The analysis defines operating, or game-day, expenses as all costs attributed to athletic contests, including transportation, equipment and other costs.

Football clocks in as the NU men’s team with the highest operating expenses at about $2.0 million. Men’s basketball is next with $631,795 and baseball third with $325,822.

On the women’s side, basketball comes in first with its operating expense by team at $514,283, the third highest between both men’s teams and women’s teams. Lacrosse is next with $269,775, the fifth highest overall. Women’s softball follows with $215,316.

Overall, total operating expenses by men’s teams come in at $3,469,692 and women’s teams at $1,886,677. The total operating expenses for women’s teams is 54% of the total for men’s.

Athletic Scholarships

Title IX requires that athletic departments spend proportionally when it comes to allocating athletic scholarships. NU allocates its spending in this area with a 55% to 45% ratio of men to women, according to the data. Men’s teams at NU received $11,408,760 in athletically related student aid, while the women’s teams received $9,488,840. Despite the disparity, these scholarship amounts reflect the 55-45 ratio that NU must follow with its athletic aid.

As the smallest school in the Big Ten and the only private school in the conference, NU has the smallest number of participants out of any Big Ten team, with 267 participants on men’s teams and 265 participant’s on women’s teams. In comparison, Ohio State, the largest school in the Big Ten, has a total of 594 participants on men’s teams and 535 participants on women’s teams.

The report defines athletically related student aid as a scholarship offered by a school for participation in its intercollegiate athletics. Other non-athletic aid isn’t included in the definition.

Despite having the lowest number of participants in varsity sports, NU spends only behind Michigan when it comes to athletic-related student aid for both men and women, and Ohio State for women’s teams. The data includes all Big Ten schools, except Penn State which is not included in the EADA report.

Ohio State spent $10.5 million on men’s teams, less than NU’s spending, but $9.5 million on women’s, more than the University’s spending on women’s teams. Even with OSU’s $369,533 in spending for coed teams, its total spending on athletically related student aid is $20.4 million in comparison to NU’s $20.9 million.

Head Coach Salaries

There are eight men’s varsity sports at NU and 11 women’s varsity sports. According to the report, the average annual institutional salary per head coach for men’s teams is $1.1 million. The average for women’s teams is $262,776, amounting to an average difference of $892,032 between men’s team head coaches and women’s team head coaches. The total of men’s teams coaches’ salaries was $9,238,464 and the total for women’s team coaches $2,890,536.

katewalter2025@u.northwestern.edu