These are questions that often arise in considering whether a district is providing an equal athletic opportunity in its interscholastic athletics program. Neither state statutes nor Title IX require that equal dollars be spent on boys' and girls' sports programs.
Equal opportunity is the primary concern.
The law recognizes that there may be circumstances when more money needs to be spent on one program than another in order to achieve the same result. A district in this case would not be out of compliance if its overall boys' program budget exceeded the girls' as a direct result of the cost of the football equipment. In contrast, however, if a district is allocating significantly different budgets to sports that appear to have similar needs, this may raise serious compliance issues. The ultimate determination of equal opportunity, however, will not be based on comparing one team to another but will depend on what is actually provided to all the teams and whether the support provided results in an equal opportunity in the athletic program overall. Thus, if a district allocates more budget for equipment to boys' baseball than to girls' softball, and the difference in budget results in a lesser quality girls' softball program, the district may not be out of compliance with the law if the disparity between baseball and softball is offset elsewhere in the athletic budget by providing greater resources to other girls' teams as compared to the other boys' teams.