The NCAA is facing backlash after many women athletes post to social media the differences between the men and women’s bubbles. Due to COVID, the athletes and coaches have to stay in a hotel at all times to keep the exposure to a minimum. The men’s basketball tournament is taking place in Indianapolis, Indiana, while the women’s is taking place in San Antonio, Texas.

On Mar. 18, many women athletes posted the differences that they are seeing in the hotel they are staying in compared to where the men are staying at. University of Oregon basketball player Sedona Prince posted a TikTok sharing the differences between what has been provided for the men vs the women during the March Madness tournament.

In the video, Prince showed the difference between the men and women’s weight room. In the video she also made aware of the statement that NCAA released on the issue.

“This is due to the limited space and the original plan was to expand the workout area one additional space is available,” the NCAA said, regarding the criticism they faced.

In Prince’s video she shows all the space that is available to have a weight room, but in the NCAA’s statement they said that it was for lack of space. Obviously there is enough space for a weight room, but in my opinion, I believe that they were to worried about the men’s basketball tournament that they didn’t have enough time or just forgot about the women’s tournaments.

Of course, the men’s NCAA Championship tournament is one of the biggest tournaments, or even just the biggest thing happening in the year for sports. Many people follow along with the men’s tournament more than the women’s because that is really just how it has happen for so many years. With the men’s tournament being the biggest tournament they also get so many big sponsors that are only for the boys team. But it is the biggest tournament for both teams and to get into this tournament is huge and I believe that both should be treated the same. When it comes to the weight rooms, both should be treated the same. Say if NCAA gets a deal with weight room they should still try and make it even and spend the money to get a good sized weight room. It doesn’t have to be exactly the same but it could at least be so much better then just a small rack of hand held weights.

Stanford sports performance coach Ali Kershner was the first to post the difference between facilities for men and women. After Kershner posted the photos, ESPN reporter Sarah Spain tweeted the huge difference that she has noticed with the food options between the two. Dan Henry posted on twitter the differences that he notice on the swag bags that each athlete had received. The Men’s athletes are getting a huge swag bag that takes up their whole entire hotel bed, where then the women athletes are getting a swag bag that has only a couple items which doesn’t even take up half of the bed.

Soon after everything was released, many professional athletes and huge names in the sports world criticized the NCAA for the inequality that had been going on in the March Madness tournaments.

Professional women basketball player Sabrina Ionescu responded with her thoughts on what was going on “Women’s @NCAA bubble weight room vs Men’s weight room… thought this was a joke. WTF is this?!? To all the women playing in the @marchmadness tournament, keep grinding!”.  

Pro-basketball player for the Phoenix Mercury, Brianna Turner, posted to her twitter “NCAA MBB tournament vibes: We are happy to have you here, NCAA WBB tournament vibes: You should be happy you’re here” 

I totally understand that this year is a crazy year and that this time last year we were just starting to close down everything and there was no march madness last year. But if you are able to make the men’s tournament amazing with all this great food, an amazing swag bag and a huge weight room. You should be able to do the same thing for the women’s tournament. Everyone should be treated the same and when it is a huge life accomplishment to get to this tournament, your are expecting something amazing when your get there and y0u don’t even get a full sized weight room to where you could possibly be staying there for almost a month.

A couple days after everything was released, the NCAA provided the women’s tournament with a new weight room and that’s amazing that NCAA did it fast and made sure to get them a weight room. But in my opinion it would have never been taking this far if they would have just provided them with a weight room, so yes it is great that they did finally provided a weight room but it should not have taken a couple days after the tournament started and for athletes and people to voice out about what happened to be able to get something that the Men’s team already have.