An Emerging Sports primer and update from the @ncaa Weekly…
Women’s History Month highlight: NCAA Emerging Sports for Women program
The Emerging Sports for Women program was created as part of the initial recommendations of the Gender Equity Task Force in 1994.
The ...program was proposed to help close the participation gap between men’s and women’s sports. By the numbers: Five sports (beach volleyball, rowing, ice hockey, water polo and bowling) have become NCAA championship sports through the program.
There are six sports currently in the program: acrobatics and tumbling, equestrian (Divisions I and II only), rugby, stunt (Divisions I and II currently; Division III starting Aug. 1, 2024), triathlon and women’s wrestling.
In 2022-23, 4,273 student-athletes competed in emerging sports (a 13% increase from the previous year), based on NCAA Sports Sponsorship and Participation Rates data. (Institutions may use emerging sports to meet minimum sports-sponsorship requirements and, in Divisions I and II, minimum financial aid requirements.)
In 2022-23, 6% of student-athletes (13,436) competed in women’s sports that became NCAA championship sports through the emerging sports program (6,707 in rowing alone). Getting in the program: Potential sports must apply to the program for consideration. The NCAA Committee on Women’s Athletics, which oversees the program, reviews applications. Based on a sport’s sponsorship levels and growth, the committee decides whether to make recommendations through the divisional governance structure to add sports to the program. Each division then votes on whether to add an emerging sport. Becoming an NCAA championship: Once in the program, 40 schools must sponsor the sport and meet its minimum sports sponsorship and participation requirements for the Committee on Women’s Athletics to consider recommending to the divisions that they add adding it as an NCAA championship.
Women’s wrestling surpassed this threshold in the 2022-23 academic year and received a recommendation to become an NCAA championship from the committee in February. The three divisions will review this recommendation at their spring governance meetings. #sprintto40
