Though we can thank the NCAA for pulling the Focus on the Family ads on NCAA.com yesterday, it looks like we need to stay alert about what might be coming as March Madness approaches. According to this article in Inside Higher Education, the Focus on the Family ads on NCAA.com were part of a larger package deal between CBS, who manages the NCAA.com site, and FOTF. The Super Bowl ads were part of this package too. It remains to be seen whether or not the package also includes an agreement to air FOTF ads as part of the NCAA tournament TV or internet coverage.

As the Higher Education article points out, the issue here is not the right of CBS, a for-profit organization, to set their own advertising standards around so-called “advocacy” ads, even if we don’t like them. The issue is the involvement of the NCAA, a non-profit educational organization made up of hundreds of member institutions across the USA, allowing itself to be associated with advertising that is in contradiction to the NCAA’s own written standards and organizational mission.

Though the FOTF ads on the NCAA.com site were not strident, anyone who is minimally familiar with FOTF’s goals and mission knows that when they say “Celebrate Families, Celebrate Life” this is not just a generic feel-good message. Their definition of families they want to celebrate is restricted to heterosexual married families. When they talk about celebrating life, it is an explicit anti-abortion message. To belief otherwise is naïve.

FOTF is entitled to their perspectives on controversial issues. They have a right to buy advertising time if their ads meet the standards of CBS or any other for-profit media group. However, we must draw a line when it comes to the involvement of non-profit educational organizations like the NCAA that represent educational institutions whose mission and values do not square with those of FOTF.

I’d like to go into March Madness like I always do, excited about the basketball I will be obsessed with over the next 5-6 weeks. I do not want to feel sold out by the NCAA or need to go to war about it. But I will if I have to.

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