Is Self-Sufficiency for Women’S Collegiate Athletics aHoop Dream?: Willingness to Pay for Men’S andWomen’S Basketball Tickets

Universities spend almost $2 billion subsidizing their collegiate sports programs. Even the mostpopular women’s sport, basketball, fails to break even. An application of Becker’s theory ofcustomer discrimination is used to calculate the relative preference for men’s basketball for bothmen and women. Median willingness to pay for men’s basketball relative to women’s basketballis 180% greater for men and 37% greater for women. Pricing each sport at its revenuemaximizing price, revenues from women’s basketball are only 43% of that for men, even at aschool with historically strong demand for women’s sports.[...]