Lets put some arbitrary amounts out there to illustrate the point... Lets say mens basketball is in a conference whose funding is like this Team 1: 10 mil Team 2: 9.5 mil Team 3: 9 mil Team 4: 8.5 mil Team 5: 8 mil Team 6: 7.5 mil Virginia Tech: 7 mil Team 7: 6.5 mil Team 8: 6 mil Team 9: 5.5 mil While middle of the pack, the gap between VT and the best team would be manageable On the women's side, lets say it looks like this Team 1: 3 million Team 2: 2.7 million Team 3: 2.4 million Virginia Tech: 2.1 million Team 4: 1.8 million Team 5: 500k Team 6: 250k Team 7: 125k Team 8: 100k Team 9: 100k Now lets say it is decided both mens and women's programs are going to be cut by 20% for next season The budgets would like like this on the mens side Team 1: 10 million Team 2: 9.5 million Team 3: 9 million Team 4: 8.5 million Team 5: 8 million Team 6: 7.5 million Team 7: 6.5 million Team 8: 6 million Virginia Tech: 5.6 million Team 9: 5.5 million And on the women's side Team 1: 3 million Team 2: 2.7 million Team 3: 2.4 million Team 4: 1.8 million Virginia Tech: 1.68 million Team 5: 500k Team 6: 250k Team 7: 125k Team 8: 100k Team 9: 100k Both teams are affected, but because the bottom half of the women's league doesnt fund their programs, you still have access to the top half of the talent within the league But for men's, they would move further down the list and go from competing for the middle third of the talent to the bottom third of the talent. You can then decide to pool that money and try to gain access to a short few higher tier players and have depth issues or you can spread the money around and have top end talent issues. But for the women, they don't need to make the same concessions. Their losses are marginal in comparison to their peers so if they make some good evaluations it could be as though they didnt lose much funding at all (or it could be detrimental if they do make mistakes in evaluating talent...like everyone else)