NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 While interest in women’s sports is booming and Olympic sports organizers lock in preparations for the 2028 Summer Games in Los Angeles, advocates worry that the college athletic programs that feed both those systems may be strained further by increased demands from bigger sports.<\/p>\n
Olympic sports haven\u2019t had the opportunity to thrive on their own, according to Women\u2019s Sports Foundation CEO Danette Leighton, because the business has centered one product: college football.<\/p>\n
Leighton is calling on donors to set the agenda. Philanthropy can protect those teams, she said, by endowing scholarships for women\u2019s gymnastics or men\u2019s tennis.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are a lot of philanthropists that are really passionate about women\u2019s sports or men\u2019s Olympic sports,\u201d she said. \u201cThey should make sure that that\u2019s where their funding is going directly.\u201d<\/p>\n
College sports programs produce around three-quarters of the U.S. Olympians at a typical Summer Games, but some are on uncertain footing in the wake of the $2.8 billion House settlement that allows schools to share more than $20 million in revenue directly with their athletes every year. Most of that money goes to football and basketball. A bill before the Senate would require protections \u2014 and funding \u2014 for Olympic and women’s sports. <\/p>\n
Some worry that efforts to commercialize the most lucrative sports are creating a bit of a Catch-22. Schools risk losing the whole athletic department if they fail to keep up with name, image and likeness opportunities, according to Celene Funke.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou lose donors, you lose ticket sales, you lose all those things. Unfortunately, yes, that does have to come first,\u201d said Funke, a former Louisville softball player who helps athletes navigate this new world as a financial adviser. \u201cThe problem is there\u2019s not enough guardrails to ensure the back end looks all right as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tennessee Education Lottery CEO Rebecca Paul established a $12 million estate gift last year for Butler University to create an endowed fund for women\u2019s athletics.<\/p>\n
Paul, who graduated from Butler with a bachelor\u2019s degree in 1970 and later earned her masters, competed as a gymnast before Title IX protections. That was back when she said \u201cgirls weren\u2019t supposed to sweat.\u201d She recalled that the women\u2019s gym was \u201cfar inferior\u201d to the men\u2019s gym. Very few women her age had the opportunity to participate in organized sports \u2014 and develop the leadership skills she believes they provide.<\/p>\n
She and her late husband decided on the gift long before name, image and likeness rights were established, according to Paul. As a Butler trustee, though, she said she hears concern from her peers at other schools about what might be lost as universities shift resources.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve always felt that it was fair that if you could be paid to work in a lab as a student, you should be able to earn money on the basketball court,\u201d she said. \u201cI think maybe how it\u2019s done needs to be reassessed.\u201d<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
Staff writer Glenn Gamboa contributed reporting from Cleveland.<\/p>\n
_____<\/p>\n
Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP\u2019s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP\u2019s philanthropy coverage, visit https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/philanthropy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 While interest in women’s sports is booming and Olympic sports organizers lock in preparations…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":816649,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3723],"tags":[78932,56984,2097,7,217,231,772,1544],"class_list":["post-816648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-basketball","tag-ap-business","tag-ap-sports","tag-associated-press","tag-basketball","tag-college-basketball","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-basketball","tag-ncaab"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/117128720810430282","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/816648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=816648"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/816648\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/816649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=816648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=816648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=816648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}