This post was written by Jack Copeland, associate director of the NCAA News and Champion Magazine.

Journalist Laura Pappano, writer-in-residence at the Wellesley Centers for Women, offered a preview this month of a study she is conducting of ticket prices for Division I sporting events.

Pappano, working in conjunction with the WCW Women's Sports Leadership Project, writes in a provocative op-ed piece in The Christian Science Monitor: "There aren't many bargains in sports, but one of them is NCAA Division I women's college basketball - and that's a problem."

She reports that men's basketball single-game tickets cost twice as much at 292 Division I institutions as tickets for women's games, and also finds large gaps between men's and women's basketball season-ticket packages.

Pappano writes that the schools with Division I's most successful women's programs - those ranked in the top 25 - charge an average of 9.5 times more for the best seats at men's games than for women's basketball, and more than twice as much for the cheapest single-game ticket.

Why is that a problem?

"Charging less to watch women devalues their play and perpetuates stereotypical economic disparities between men and women," she writes, asserting that lingering differences in ticket prices reinforce views about the quality of men's basketball, compared to women's competition.

"For years," she writes, "women's sports have been priced as Saturday-afternoon birthday party fare (bring 20 and it's $2 each) rather than a top-shelf Saturday night event-worthy social gathering (who has those courtside seats?)."

Pappano also offered a link to the piece at Fair Game News.com, where she is a regular contributor. Like I said, her words were provocative: Several readers dismissed her viewpoint, which they read simply as a call to hike prices for women's games, as ignorant of market forces (some said so much less kindly). Others proclaimed that the men's game - featuring more "action, dunks and power," as one critic put it - is a far more appealing product and therefore deserving of its higher price tag.

I think Pappano's real point may be a bit muddled in the Monitor piece, lost in language that stirs basketball fans to defend what they perceived as an attack on their choice of entertainment. But the fact is, she isn't blaming fans for failing to appreciate the women's game. And she isn't saying, raise ticket prices to make the product seem more valuable, as she subsequently made clear at Fair Game News.

In fact, I think she's criticizing a lack of vision among those of us who are charged with marketing and promoting college athletics - and we shouldn't dismiss the point lightly.

Right up front in the Monitor piece, she asks which is the better "deal" - the $595 per season ticket (plus sizable donations to the athletics program) that Louisville men's basketball fans paid this year for the best seat to watch an exciting team win the Big East Conference and advance to the regional final of the Division I Men's Basketball Championship? Or the $65 it cost for the same seat to watch the women's team - a squad that advanced to the national-championship game at the Women's Final Four?

There isn't a doubt in my mind, having personally seen the thousands of red-clad fans who gathered at Indianapolis' Lucas Oil Stadium to watch the Louisville men play in last month's Midwest Regional games, that many would say (perhaps while permitting themselves a deep, resigned breath during these economically troubled times) that the thrill of watching this team was worth every penny they paid for the privilege.

There's even less doubt in my mind that the fans who followed the Louisville women through the sparsely attended Raleigh regional - most of whom presumably also bought those $65 tickets for this year's home schedule - feel they made off with the steal of the century.

I certainly wouldn't blame Louisville for raising ticket prices for both men's and women's basketball a bit, or even a lot, next year - and at the same time, I don't think hiking only the women's tickets will put that program on anything approaching a more equal platform with the men's team.

I also wouldn't blame the school for emphasizing what a great deal women's fans still will be getting for the money, or what a terrific family-friendly activity Cardinal women's basketball offers (even for birthday parties).

But while doing so, it also can sell the competitiveness of the Big East Conference (which provided both of this year's Division I women's finalists), the fledgling tradition of the Louisville women's program, and even the opportunity for fans to yell their lungs out and flash the "L" with their hands - probably occasionally even on television.

The marketing and promotions folks at Louisville now find themselves blessed with a pretty special product to promote, and I trust they will do so, being the professionals they are. I think most Division I schools are similarly blessed at some basic level.

In the marketplace, though, half-price sales and special promotions come and go. There's something to be said for relentlessly treating women's basketball, and other women's sports, as a quality product - nurtured and, more importantly, supported as something that's essential to a campus and community.

Valued as such, the product will attract willing buyers - regardless of price.