NCAA president boasts about girls’s volleyball TV rankings amid SJSU trans athlete controversy and lawsuits

NCAA President Charlie Baker claimed TV rankings for the NCAA girls’s volleyball event rose “100%” this yr throughout an interview on ESPN’s “The Pat McAfee Present” Thursday. 

The surge comes only one yr after the 2023 event noticed a 115% improve from 2022. 

“The rankings this yr grew somewhat too, by one other 100%,” Baker boasted throughout the interview. “Folks like to see competitors. Folks like to see younger folks compete, and we acquired to cease speaking about sports activities apart from soccer and basketball as ‘non-revenue.’” 

Baker celebrated the surge in viewers forward of the semifinals Thursday night time, when Pittsburgh takes on Louisville and Penn State takes on Nebraska. 

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This yr’s event almost had an look by San Jose State amid a nationwide controversy that overshadowed a lot of the school volleyball season. San Jose State volleyball participant Brooke Slusser has an energetic lawsuit towards the NCAA and leads one other lawsuit with a number of different gamers towards the Mountain West Convention. 

The lawsuits allege Slusser and different gamers had been compelled to compete with transgender participant Blaire Fleming with out ever being instructed of Fleming’s pure delivery intercourse. The controversy and the transgender athlete’s continued presence on the staff all through the season resulted in forfeits of seven regular-season matches and a convention event semifinal. 

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It was an unprecedented string of forfeits within the sport’s historical past. The backlash to the scenario resulted in a menace towards Slusser and added police safety for the staff in any respect residence and away video games this yr, Fox Information Digital beforehand reported. 

The controversy even drew criticism from Donald Trump throughout a Fox Information city corridor in October. 

San Jose State beforehand confirmed to Fox Information Digital the staff didn’t notify any opponents on its schedule of the scenario involving Fleming all through the season, solely giving notification to different colleges of wanted additional safety. 

 police safety The inclusion of the transgender participant was even challenged in courtroom. Slusser and different gamers concerned in her lawsuit sought to have Fleming faraway from the Mountain West event.

SJSU transgender participant Blaire Fleming, left, and teammate Brooke Slusser went to a magic present and had Thanksgiving collectively in Las Vegas regardless of an ongoing lawsuit over Fleming being transgender. (Thien-An Truong/San Jose State Athletics)

Colorado District Decide Kato Crews allowed Fleming to play within the event, ruling the plaintiffs’ request for an emergency delay “was not cheap” and “would danger confusion and upend months of planning and would prejudice, at a minimal, [San Jose State] and different groups taking part within the event.”

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So Fleming, Slusser and the opposite SJSU Spartans went to Las Vegas for the event and even acquired a bye within the first spherical by advantage of six convention video games forfeited by opponents. 

Boise State had already forfeited two regular-season conferences to San Jose State amid the controversy as a result of the college’s residence state of Idaho has an government order in place to bar transgender athletes from girls’s sports activities. So, after Boise State beat Utah State within the quarterfinal spherical, the Broncos forfeited a 3rd time within the semifinal to ship San Jose State to the championship match. 

San Jose State College Spartans head coach Todd Kress speaks with reporters after a loss in an NCAA Mountain West girls’s volleyball recreation towards the Colorado State College Rams in Fort Collins, Colo., Oct. 3, 2024. (Santiago Mejia/San Francisco Chronicle by way of Getty Photos)

Colorado State defeated San Jose State within the remaining, maintaining Fleming and the Spartans out of the NCAA event.

After that match, Spartans head coach Todd Kress supplied an announcement to Fox Information Digital.

“Every forfeiture announcement unleashed appalling, hateful messages people selected to ship on to our student-athletes, our teaching workers and plenty of related to our program,” Kress stated.

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