While women’s university sports teams have finally begun to command the same respect on the field as men’s teams, a recently released report from Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS) shows they are still far from catching up to their male counterparts in terms of funding opportunities.
According to the data collected by CIS, Canadian schools provided more than $4.3 million in award money to student athletes in 2001-2002. 67 per cent of these funds are directed to male athletes.
Nova Scotia’s St. Francis Xavier University (St. F.X.) had the country’s third-largest athlete awards budget. Almost 83 per cent of the school’s $260,000 in award money was granted to male athletes.
Tom Kendall, St. F.X.’s director of athletics and recreation, admits the statistics do not paint a rosy picture of the opportunities for female athletes at his school.
“That looks horrible. I think it reflects the history in terms of how money has been raised and inherited in the past. The bursaries are very skewed. There are just not the number created for women’s sports as there have been for men’s sports,” he said.
Kendall points to strong alumni support for the university’s football team and national championship wins for the men’ basketball team as contributing factors to the success of men’s athletic fundraising. Although contributions from the university itself are roughly equal for men’s and women’s teams, Kendall believes that a female sports dynasty would go a long way to ensuring public financial support for women’s clubs.
“I know for a fact it would help. It’s just like everything else. People want to see a winner,” he said.
This is a sentiment shared by Kathy Mullane, interim athletics director at Halifax’s St. Mary’s University. She cites the school’s Vanier Cup win as providing a needed shot in the arm for the football team’s fundraising efforts. However, Mullane believes that creating and supporting women’s sports teams is the best way to close the athletic gender gap.
“All the new teams we have added since I’ve been here have been women’s teams. By adding women’s hockey and rugby we’ve achieved gender equity in the number of men and women athletes. We actually have more women’s teams than men’s,” she said.
For her part, CIS CEO Marg McGregor confirms that university support for sports teams cannot be measured by the bottom line alone.
“Athletic awards represent a small portion of the support Canadian universities contribute to student-athletes,” she said.
“Universities in Canada make a staggering contribution to the sport system and to student athletes through facility development, coach employment, running competitive leagues and programs and hosting high performance events and camps.”
While many universities are motivated to tackle the gender gap in athletes’ awards on their own, CIS has designated 2005-2006 as the year by which they’d like to see a nation-wide parity in monies given to male and female athletes. For his part, Kendall concedes the target date may be optimistic, but he’s confident that St. F.X. will achieve award parity in the near future.
“If we’re not, it won’t be because we are not trying. The fact of the matter is there is no rational reason for providing more opportunity for men than women, whether in terms of sports, academics or anything.”
