Re: UMaine Black Bears 2017/18, Red dawn
Maine currently sponsors 9 women’s and 8 men’s sports, so at least by my understanding of the rule women’s hockey could get cut. I heard through the grapevine at one point they were considering axing it last year.
Raw number of sports has nothing to do with it. There are a few ways to satisfy title IX, but the easiest back of the napkin way to do it is look at women's scholarships or spending vs. men's, and make sure that ratio is equivalent to the population of the student body as a whole. So, if your student body is 60/40 female (not unusual- more women go to college than men), 60% of your resources have to go to women's sports.
Saying "Maine has 9 women's sports and 8 men's, we can cut a women's sport" doesn't work because football has 63 scholarships and a huge financial investment. If you cut women's hockey, ALL of the money spent on women's hockey has to go to other women's sports, it can't be spent on men's hockey or basketball or football.
This is why the power 5 dominates women's sports moreso than they do men's (and they do dominate men's). If Alabama spends $50 million on football (SPENDs, not has net revenue- SPENDS), they have to pour $50M into women's athletics. So, their softball team has three practice fields and they give out dozens of women's track scholarships.
Long story short- women's hockey may not be popular but it, or another sport like it, needs to exist if Maine is going to offer men's hockey, baseball and football.
EDIT TO ADD: I looked up how the Supreme Court defined satisfying Title IX. You have to do one of these three things:
-Do as above, and provide opportunity in athletics that is proportionate to enrollment.
-Demonstrate continual expansion of athletic opportunities for women.
-Fully accommodate the interests and abilities of female students.
Cutting a sport doesn't show expansion. And there's no way the University could say "there isn't a woman on campus who wants to play a sport we don't offer." So, Maine needs to do what it does. And if Maine is going to have to offer a women's sport that is fairly expensive, women's hockey at least offers an opportunity to have success. Heck, the school has taken it seriously for what, two/three years? And they are in the top ten nationally? I say spend more money on it and go win a title.