College basketball

The NCAA now allows student-athletes to benefit financially. Some make a lot more money.

“A large majority of them are men, and they are supporting what they have supported in the past.” Opendorse data found that — excluding the money from collectives — male and female basketball players made roughly the same amount of money from NIL deals. “There will be women’s basketball players that get drafted into the WNBA and take a pay cut.” The pay gap is everywhere and it compounds over the course of our lives and careers.” [submitted a letter](https://www.thedrakegroup.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/FINAL-Drake-Letter-to-OCR-1-10-23-1.pdf) to the U.S. Even so, athletes know which schools have established collectives that are willing to pay up, so the funds likely factor into many players’ college decisions. Of players competing in the March Madness tournament, eight of the 10 most-followed on Instagram are women, according to Opendorse. “It just never seems fair that we can do the exact same work, spend the same time, make the same sacrifices as male athletes and not be rewarded the same way,” she said in an email. According to the data, most of the men’s earnings edge comes from football, which by itself accounted for 55.1% of NIL deals. The numbers point to a disappointing reality that the long-standing disparities in professional sports already pervade college competition. College athletes generally get paid in one of two ways. The men’s and women’s March Madness tournaments are structured identically.