Women in NCAA Intercollegiate Athletics: A National Study Revisited

A Landmark Longitudinal Analysis of Participation, Coaching, and Leadership

For more than 40 years, the Acosta–Carpenter study served as the definitive record of women’s progress in college athletics. After a decade-long pause, The Collective® Think Tank has revived and extended this critical research to examine where women’s college sports stand today and what is at stake next.

Drawing on federally mandated Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act (EADA) data and NCAA participation records from 1,055 institutions, this report provides the most current and comprehensive system-level view of women’s participation, coaching, and leadership across NCAA athletics.

Here’s

What’s

Inside the

Report

Highlights

43.5%

Percentage of NCAA athletes are women, a figure that has remained largely unchanged for nearly a decade.

Football-sponsoring institutions continue to show the widest gender gaps.

46.3%

Of women’s teams are coached by women but hold just 5.9% of head coaching roles for men’s teams.

Emerging women’s sports face both growth opportunitiesand heightened vulnerability.

Why This Research Matters

As college athletics undergoes rapid transformation driven by NIL, roster limits, revenue-sharing models, and budget pressures, this research makes one thing clear: equity will not continue on momentum alone.

Institutional decisions made now will determine whether decades of progress are protected or quietly eroded.