Following criticism of the disparity between male and female training facilities during March Madness, the NCAA unveiled an updated weight room on Saturday for basketball players competing in the first division tournament.
“The weight room is here!” the NCAA women’s basketball account tweeted on Saturday afternoon. “Let’s gooooo.”
NCAA officials apologized on Friday after images and videos surfaced on social media this week showing the marked differences between the female and male weight rooms in Texas and Indiana, respectively.
The women’s tournament weight room seemed to consist of a single set of dumbbells and a few yoga mats, while the more luxurious men’s tournament weight room was stocked with rows of weights and training equipment.
Lynn Holzman, vice president of women’s basketball at the NCAA, promised to make improvements on Saturday morning.
“We fell short of this year,” said Holzman during a news conference on Friday.
“I already tried it when you don’t have something like it,” said Holzman, a former college basketball player. “That’s also why it hit me so much … There is an aspect of responsibility as the conversation progresses that is on my mind.”
The new weight room, located within the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center in San Antonio, offers more weights, as well as socially distant squat racks, resistance bands and exercise balls. The areas close to the center’s practice courts also have exercise bikes, treadmills, rowing machines and other equipment.
Sedona Prince, from the University of Oregon, who helped highlight the disparity in weight rooms in a viral social media video, posted an update to the new facility on Saturday afternoon.
“Guess what, guys? We have a weight room, yes!” Prince said in a TikTok video that included several of his teammates cheering. “Thank you NCAA for listening to us.”
Some of the new equipment has already been ordered or would be assembled only for the Sweet 16 teams, according to ESPN. NCAA officials also accepted offers of equipment from companies made on social media, ESPN reported.
The weight room controversy addressed major issues of inequality in women’s college basketball, from the difference in the number of Division I teams competing in women’s (64) versus men’s (68) tournaments, to social media branding that focuses on men’s games.
“Women’s basketball is a popular sport whose stock and presence continues to grow globally,” said South Carolina women’s basketball coach Dawn Staley said in a statement Friday night. “[It is time] for the NCAA leadership to reassess the value they place on women. “