If you look at the list of teams on GoViks.com, there are almost twice as many women’s sports teams as there are men’s. Where are all of the men’s sports, you might ask? Both sides of the athletic program have an equal amount of scholarships to hand out, but with a football team that takes up to 58 of the guys’ awards, there isn’t much money left to spread around.
The two sports that bring in the most revenue at PSU are football and men’s basketball. The football team plays at Jeld-Wen Field and faces big BCS schools every year. The basketball team has been to the NCAA Tournament twice in the recent past and draws big crowds at the Peter W. Stott Center.
Regardless of the football and basketball teams’ ability to generate some serious income, the success of the men’s athletics program is essentially limited to these two sports. Baseball and men’s soccer, two major sports that normally draw in a surplus of fans and money, only exist as club sports at PSU.
“It’s scholarships as well as participation,” athletic director Torre Chisholm said on the issue of men’s soccer and baseball teams. “Those sports are a little more constricted by the participation component.”
To be fair, the Big Sky Conference does not include men’s soccer or baseball in their lineup. While this arrangement allows many football players to have access to scholarships, other potentially great men’s teams are not considered. Women’s athletics funds are dispersed differently, which allows for many different teams, including softball and soccer.
Here at PSU the women’s track and field program has been fighting for a Big Sky Conference championship the last few seasons. The men, try as they might, have not. How can there be such a disparity among two teams who have the same coaching staff, same practice facilities and a majority of the same meets?
It all comes down to the issue of revenue.
“It’s always nice to have more money,” assistant track and field coach Jonathan Marcus said. “But at the same time you have to operate in reality. I just ask what the constraints are that we have to work with, and how can we be as successful as possible with what we have now.”
The lack of men’s sports at PSU leads to a sports culture that is dominated by women—and they do dominate in every sense of the word. Women’s track and field is very successful. The softball team has been to the NCAA tournament four times in the last five years and has won over 80 percent of their conference games in the last six seasons. The soccer team has yet to lose a conference game this season, and they have enjoyed many wins over the last few years. The list goes on. Why shouldn’t men’s athletics reap the same success?
