The pattern: We are routinely asked to believe the absurd: that men, the privileged class in all sport systems, are being victimized by women.
by Donna Lopiano, PhD
“Blame female athletes.” “Blame women’s sports.” “Blame Title IX.”
These are the consistent refrains of male sports entitlement. Every time male athletes don’t get what they think they deserve, they blame women.
One familiar example: Women who insist on safe and fair same-sex sports opportunities are accused of depriving men of sports opportunities – as if transgender-identified males cannot compete against other guys. We are even accused of driving transgender-identified males to commit suicide: a ludicrous accusation but a common refrain, and an old one. If male athletes are unhappy, it must be women’s fault.
Welcome, Subscribers! Today’s column is by my dear friend Donna Lopiano: former CEO of the Women’s Sports Foundation; longtime Title IX pioneer and leader; founding member of the Women’s Sports Policy Working Group.
Here’s another example: Who is responsible for the USA men’s soccer team not advancing further in the World Cup? The players or coaches? No. It must be women’s uppity insistence on equal sports opportunities. “Title IX has actively suppressed the growth of men’s sports,” allegedly. This is baloney.
The pattern: We are routinely asked to believe the absurd: that men, the privileged class in all sport systems, are being victimized by women.
Here’s the truth:
In 1972, 3.6 million boys participated in high school sports compared to 294,000 girls. In 2024-5, 4.7 million boys participated in high school sports compared to 3.5 million girls. In other words, girls have not yet reached the level of sports participation enjoyed by boys 54 years ago. They are still being shortchanged by over 1 million participation opportunities.
In 1972, 170,000 men participated in college sports compared to 30,000 women. In 2024-5, 316,000 men participated in college sports compared to 239,000 women. Women are being shortchanged by about 200,000 participation opportunities, given their 58 percent undergraduate female enrollment status.
A 2024 U.S. General Accounting Office report on the failure of the Office for Civil Rights to enforce Title IX revealed that 93 percent of all colleges and universities do not comply with Title IX’s equitable participation standard.
So don’t tell us that men are suffering because of Title IX.
I’m almost 80 and have lived through so many “blame women’s sports” moments that I can’t begin to list them all. One pivotal moment occurred in 1975, three years after Congress adopted Title IX. The law prohibited discrimination in all educational programs and activities. It required coed classes in subjects such as math, science, and home economics – and would require a legal exception to permit separate-sex sport.
I was a 29-year-old director of women’s athletics at the University of Texas. As a former elite softball player, I knew in my bones that if women were ever going to have a chance to play varsity sports, we needed Congress to provide this exception. It was my privilege to begin working with teammates nationwide to educate the public and Congress.
In 1975, Congress asked the Office of Civil Rights to develop such regulations. All hell broke loose. Powerful men in charge of the American Football Coaches Association, the NCAA, other male-dominated sports organizations, and the media threatened the public that Title IX would kill men’s football. Female demands for female rights – simple, separate, equitable sports – were painted as sabotaging male entitlement.
The battle played out in Congress. The powerful male alliance asked Congress to exempt football and men’s basketball from Title IX’s computations of gender equity. Male football and basketball players were almost depicted as members of a privileged third sex — not because of their gender identity then, but because their sports sometimes generated revenue.
Fortunately, like the current Supreme Court in the recent trans athlete-related cases, Congress did not fall for the play. They defeated four amendments designed to exclude football and basketball from Title IX. Eventually, we won.
But attempts to undercut Title IX and blame women for men’s failures and frustrations didn’t stop there. Throughout the 70’s and 80’s, whenever any men’s sport program was dropped, men claimed, “Title IX is killing men’s wrestling” or “Title IX is killing men’s swimming” or “Title IX is killing men’s track.”
The latest: “Title IX is killing men’s Olympic sports.” “Title IX is killing our men’s national soccer team.”
Truth is, both men’s sports and women’s sports are being hurt by programs that prioritize men’s football and basketball by engaging in pay-for-play; offer lavish coach salaries; and provide other benefits inappropriate for non-profit institutions of higher education. In any given year, only 15-20 college athletic programs generate more revenues on an operating basis than they spend. More than 99 percent of all athletics programs are subsidized by non-athlete tuition and student activity fee subsidies. Tell that to parents whose children are graduating college with average student loan debts of $40,000.
Division I schools spend twice as much on men’s sports as women’s sports, and 75 to 80 percent of the money spent on Division I men’s sports currently goes to football and basketball. Both women’s sports and non-revenue men’s sports – Olympic sports – are getting squeezed out. Predictably, there are now folks in Congress and the Power Four conferences who behind the scenes are calling for Title IX revisions to allow male athletes in revenue sports to be excluded from any computation of gender equity: a blatant return to 1975, when Congress strongly rejected those efforts.
Athletics administrators, 85 percent of whom are male in NCAA Division I, have consistently prioritized football and men’s basketball and minimized the development of women’s sports by choosing not to advertise, promote, and develop women’s games. Thank goodness for streaming platforms that are finally enabling the public to see women’s sports generate television ratings that sometimes exceed those of popular men’s sports.
Make a quick phone call to your Senators now with the following simple message. “Please oppose S.4668 unless it is amended to include the following provision: Nothing in this Act shall be construed to override, modify, or amend the applicability of Title IX.”
As we speak, the U.S. Senate is considering the Protect College Sports Act of 2026 (S.4668). This would allow the top 70 institutions in the country to funnel at least $1.5 billion dollars in revenue to college athletes in 2026-27, most of which will go to star football and basketball players.
Schools are refusing to release information on how they are distributing these new funds and refusing to fulfill the media’s public disclosure requests. Reports indicate that 80 to 90 percent of these funds will be going to male athletes, as we believe occurred in 2025-26, the first year of the House v. NCAA settlement.
There is no mention of Title IX in the current Senate bill – no reminder to schools that an equitable male-female distribution of financial assistance is their Title IX obligation.
Those who care about women’s and Olympic sports can do something. Make a quick phone call to your Senators now with the following simple message. “Please oppose S.4668 unless it is amended to include the following provision: Nothing in this Act shall be construed to override, modify, or amend the applicability of Title IX.” Staff members keep a tally to record constituent positions on pending legislation.
Don’t let powerful apologists for men’s football and basketball undermine Title IX yet again. And don’t let them blame women. We have every right to fairness – and the law is on our side.
Thoughts? We’re always curious.
Donna Lopiano, PhD, is a Title IX sports pioneer who specializes in gender equity in educational, Olympic and elite sports through her company, Sports Management Resources, LLC. As an athlete, she participated in 26 national championships in four sports and was a nine-time All-American at four different positions in softball, a sport in which she played on six national championship teams.
It’s the first rule of the patriarchy: women are always wrong. Followed closely by “women are to blame.”
A good old-fashioned word to describe female impersonators who say they are victimized by women: Crybabies. And for those men who are attacking women trying to preserve female-only spaces: Jerks.