On February 20, the LSU women’s gymnastics team broke its home attendance record when 12,217 fans showed up at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center to watch #3 LSU take on #2 Florida. Two weeks later on March 6, the Tigers broke the school record with 13,179 watching the final home meet of the season. That same night in Salt Lake City, the Utah women’s gymnastics team broke their own attendance record at the Jon Huntsman Center with 16,019 on hand to see the Red Rocks defeat Michigan.

At this year’s NCAA Women’s National Championships, the Fort Worth Convention Center was filled with boisterous fans as twelve teams battled it out for the ultimate prize. The previous weekend during the men’s championships in Norman, the arena was relatively empty as the Oklahoma Sooners claimed their sixth title in front of a home crowd.

Exact attendance figures are hard to come by, but it’s a recurring problem. Last year, the Michigan men’s team won their second consecutive title before a home crowd of 3,872 (the capacity of the Crisler Center is 12,707). The crowd this year at the Lloyd Noble Center (capacity: 11,528) can’t have been much larger than that for a home team heavily favored to win, and it showed in the wider camera shots. The small-but-exuberant crowd couldn’t overpower the sight of so many empty seats.

(In fairness, maybe it’s partly an Oklahoma problem. When the #1 OU women’s team faced #2 Florida in one of the most exciting match-ups of the regular season, they boasted a program record attendance with a magnificent figure of 4,138.)

Regardless, men’s NCAA gymnastics suffers from a crucial lack of exposure, and it’s not just an issue of attendance. The women’s Super Six team final was broadcast by ESPN, with commentary, background information, and multiple camera angles—all luxuries that the men’s final went without. Six separate streaming videos focused on each individual apparatus, without commentary or subtitles informing the viewer of which team or gymnast was competing. Audio from the arena was the only thing keeping viewers apprised of the situation besides the live score webpage (which was not always working correctly).

For a women’s gymnastics fan like me who can almost keep up with the basics of form and scoring in the men’s sport, watching the competition was an intimidating prospect. For a casual gymnastics fan, it’s unthinkable. Imagine watching an event like pommel horse (which has no women’s equivalent), barely knowing who’s competing, having to switch tabs to see the live score page just to keep up, and not knowing how that score compares to the rest of the competition. It’s not exactly a great way to grow the fan base!

One of the fundamental differences between men and women’s NCAA gymnastics is the age and career status of the gymnasts. The women coming from an elite background tend to be finished with their careers, winding down with the more easygoing NCAA atmosphere before saying their farewells to the sport. Men competing elite can have much longer careers, and oftentimes in the US will train with a college team and compete elite in the off-season. This year’s team final included five current National Team members and previous years have boasted Olympians and World medalists. The past successes of collegiate women are used to draw crowds: every season, at least one commentator must mention that Bridget Sloan is the first World AA champion to compete in NCAA. Why can’t the current success of the men do the same?

And drawing crowds is definitely something men’s gymnastics needs. Every few years it seems like another school proposes dropping the sport. Most recently, the men’s program at Temple University was dissolved in 2014 despite a history of success. Cal and Minnesota have both been cut and were reinstated after hurried fundraising efforts. In 1996, there were 36 men’s gymnastics programs; today, there are less than 20. When the financial axe swings down, it’s the less popular sports that find themselves on the chopping block, and men’s gymnastics is hardly the most popular or accessible sport.

Popularity takes time and effort to build up, but accessibility is a smaller mountain and easier to climb. Proper coverage of the National Championships is a good start. Fans who tuned into the women’s competition walked away knowing who the best gymnasts are on each event, who had recently overcome an injury, and which teams have won in the past. Those who watched the men’s competition learned nothing, except that Oklahoma won and Akash Modi of Stanford took the All-Around title—but would they have seen any of Modi’s routines unless they knew which camera to be watching at any given time? It’s confusing, and nothing kills audience interest like confusion. People will not watch a sport if they do not understand it. Men’s NCAA gymnastics can be saved, but not if it continues to be impenetrable to everyone but the already dedicated followers.

Innumerable articles have already been written about the inability of NCAA men’s gymnastics to break into the public sphere. Fingers have been pointed at every possible cause, from scholarship allotment to Title IX analysis to the scoring system. Let the experts decode the in and outs of NCAA politics; all I ask is that in the meanwhile, the NCAA do more than the bare minimum to make the sport accessible to fans.

Article by Grace Magoun