National Collegiate Athletic Association

The NCAA News - News and Features

June 23, 1997

Committee receives clarification on women's marketing

The NCAA Committee on Women's Athletics has received a clarification on how the Association's new marketing and promotion initiative will apply to women's sports.

At its June 9-11 meeting, the committee met with representatives of Host Communications, Inc. Committee members asked about the purpose of the "NCAA Sports" marketing and promotion effort.

Joyce A. Myers, president of Host's Women's Sports Division, which is handling the women's sports portion of the campaign, explained that

NCAA Sports is a cooperative marketing effort. It has four parts -- NCAA Football, NCAA Basketball, NCAA Women's Sports and NCAA Olympic Sports. The first phase, unveiled in February, was NCAA Football.

Myers told the committee that its concerns will be addressed as the fall campaign is prepared. The committee also said the fall campaign should include a women's sport such as volleyball.

In giving an overview of the women's marketing initiative, Myers told committee members the purpose of NCAA Women's Sports is to create the leading national organization to market women's intercollegiate sports profitably.

Myers told the committee that the Women's Sports Division plans to carefully select sponsors, broadcast and print partners, and licensees who meet the highest level of professional and ethical standards and who should be associated with women's intercollegiate sports and the NCAA.

Increased public awareness of and interest in women's sports, corporate support for women's sports, and the increasing availability of female role models all will contribute to the NCAA Women's Sports effort, Myers said.

A presentation on the "Take a Girl to the Game" (TAGG) promotion was given by Carolanne E. McAuliffe, vice-president of the Women's Sports Division. TAGG was created in 1996 in conjunction with National Girls and Women in Sports Day to encourage adults to take a girl to an NCAA women's basketball game free of admission.

This year -- the second year for the program -- 75 NCAA institutions participated, McAuliffe said. Almost half of those colleges set attendance records.

The women's athletics committee recommended that Host provide colleges with support materials such as posters, signage, banners, handouts and literature in conjunction with the 1998 TAGG program to better assist colleges in marketing the program.

Patty Viverito, chair of the committee, said the committee was impressed with Myers and McAuliffe as stewards of the NCAA women's sports marketing effort.

"Those of us anxious to see sports marketing for women take off can feel good about the two fantastic women hired to serve as guardians of the effort," she said.

In other action, the committee:

  • Heard an affirmative action report on NCAA national office staffing and expressed concern that 74 percent of the leadership is male. The committee recommended that consideration be given to gender and ethnic diversity, especially at the decision-making level, as new staff is hired during the process of relocation of the national office to Indianapolis.

    Noting a lack of diversity in the selection of chairs for Division I cabinets in the new NCAA governance structure, the committee supported the recommendation of the Division I Management Council that the selection review committee be asked to forward a recommendation regarding diversity in the selection of chairs to the Management Council for review at its July meeting.

  • Discussed revamping the Association's senior woman administrator brochure to include more information on how SWAs can become involved in the new governance structure.

    The committee is considering sending the SWA brochure and an accompanying letter this fall to member institutions emphasizing the importance of the SWA position within the restructured Association. The committee also asked for information on how many colleges have appointed SWAs. The committee is interested in using that information to encourage more institutions to have a designated SWA.

  • Recommended that curricula be added to the Life Skills Program to address student-athlete violence, in light of the NCAA Executive Committee's recent denial of a request for $200,000 to fund a grant program on the topic. In denying the request, the Executive Committee said that other avenues for providing such programming were available on campuses.

    The committee also recommended that the number of colleges with access to the Life Skills Program be increased, acknowledging that additional staffing and funding would be necessary to implement such a program.

  • Noted the 25th anniversary of the passage of Title IX and the recent publication of the NCAA Gender-Equity Study.