NCAA Under Fire For Refusing to Allow Women’s Basketball Tournament to Use Popular ‘March Madness’ Brand
Photo by Maddie Meyer/Getty Images.
The NCAA’s March Madness brand for their annual collegiate basketball championship is one of the most popular and best recognized in sports, but this year, it’s gaining new scrutiny as yet another way in which the NCAA treats men’s and women’s sports differently.
The NCAA has faced criticism this year after social media posts highlighted the discrepancies between the men’s and women’s training facilities and meal options — especially after several now-viral videos from Oregon Ducks player Sedona Prince.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the NCAA’s trademark for “March Madness” was issued in 1993 and the application does include using the brand for both the men’s and women’s tournaments. From the very beginning of its creation in the 1980s, however, the phrase has only been used for the men’s games.
“When the current version of the March Madness logos and branding were developed five years ago, women’s basketball leadership at that time chose to pursue their own brand identity,” was the NCAA’s original excuse on Saturday, but they backtracked on that “inaccurate” statement on Sunday.
A source familiar with the matter confirmed to the WSJ that the women’s tournament had made at least one request in recent years to use the March Madness brand.
The value of the brand is clear on social media. The Twitter account for @MarchMadness (1.5 million followers) describes itself as “The official NCAA March Madness destination for all things Division I NCAA Men’s Basketball,” and the Instagram account (nearly 800,000 followers) also posts only content from the men’s games. Same with the NCAA’s March Madness Live app.
The women’s tournament has a much smaller footprint online. The @ncaawb Twitter and Instagram accounts combined are still under 700,000 followers.
“March Madness” has become shorthand for the men’s tournament in recent years, with Google Trends showing that searches for “March Madness” far exceed those for “NCAA Tournament.”
