when did women's basketball become an olympic sport
Women's basketball The popularity of women's basketball grew steadily around the world for decades. By the 1970s the sport had attracted the notice the International Olympic Committee, which added women's basketball as an official sport of the Olympic Games in 1976, the men debuted in 1936. Throughout the 1970s, funding for (and interest in) women's basketball began to dramatically increase as schools receiving federal funding began to come into compliance with new laws mandating a lack of discrimination based on sex. The sport was also gaining attention at the collegiate level, under the auspices of the Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW). A major development in women's basketball occurred in 1982 when the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) began to sponsor the sport.[citation needed]. After several failed attempts at women's professional leagues in the U.S., the NBA founded the WNBA in 1996.
Title IX Prior to Title IX's enactment women were not given the opportunities that men were. Men were the ones given academic opportunities such as scholarships and funding while women were not viewed as equal. As a result, Title IX was created. Pre- Title IX in 1971 only 1% of the athletic budgets went to female sports on the college level. On the high school level male athletes outnumbered female athletes 12.5 to 1. After Title IX, there was a 600% increase in the number of women playing college sports.[9][10]