Title IX
In 1971，women formed the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women（AIAW）13 in order to promotemore sports opportunities for female college students.Lobbying efforts by female activists in Congress produced a federal law，known as Title IX of the Education Amendments14 of 1972，which required equal opportunities for both genders in any high school，college，or university that received federal aid.
The law was very often applied to gain equal opportunities in sport，and，although it was challenged by the NCAA，schools，coaches，and individuals，the courts consistently upheld it，thus prompting wholesale changes in the funding and selection of teams in all public-school programs.Girls even won the right to play on Little League baseball teams.Interscholastic girls'teams proliferated，and participants jumped from only 294，000 at the beginning of the decade to almost2 million at its end.At the college level，the AIAWinitiated separate championships forwomen in various sports.
Because female administrators initially intended to forgo the commercialized，overly competitive model of themen's programs，they did not want to offer incentives to the athletes such as scholarships.However，a 1973 court case initiated by a female athlete required athletic scholarships for women similar to those granted to men，and women's basketball，the most popular of female sports，soon had its own version of the recruiting wars thatmarked men's programs.
The rising popularity ofwomen's sports led the NCAA to offer its own intercollegiate championships for women in 1981 in direct competition with the AIAW.Unable to competewith the overflowing NCAA treasury，which controlled television contracts，the AIAW suffered.Moreover，athletic directors at coed schoolswere almost universally male，and they tended to opt formembership in the NCAA rather than the AIAW.By 1983，the AIAW had ceased operations and sued the NCAA as amonopoly，a case it lostbecause the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics（NAIA）15，an alternative governing body，provides its own intercollegiate championships.Despite the promise of Title IX，the demise of the AIAW severely retarded the growth of leadership opportunities for women，as well as any sense of power within the intercollegiate bureaucracy.Male athletic directors tended to hiremale coaches，even for women's teams.In 1972，more than 90%ofwomen's teams had been led by female coaches，but that number would dwindle to 44 percent by 2004.Similarly，more than 90 percent of women's intercollegiate programs had a female athletic director in 1972，but that figure fell to only 18 percent by 2004.
One popular female sporting event continued to attract players and fans.The Iowa girls'high school basketball championship surpassed that of the boys in interest.The first state tournament was held in 1920，when six contestants per team played on a divided court that limited players'exertions，and the game began a gradual shift to themore conventional full-court game，with five players per team，in 1985.The girls'tournaments received television coverage as early as 1951.Tournament gameswere played in the state capital，and tickets and hotel rooms had to be booked months in advance.Tournamentweek even became a long holiday for some schools，and the festival atmosphere and accompanying rituals of honor bestowed respect upon the players and indicated the value placed on girls'physicality in Iowa.By the end of the 1970s，a national survey found that Iowa had the nation's highest percentage of female high school athletes.Thus，the case of Iowa showed notonly that girls could play basketball but also that there were sizable audiences for girls'sport.