I don't know this for sure, but I'm willing to place a beer bet that the 'decision' to set up the women's bubble wasn't made by some dude, but by a committee that included a reasonable number of women. I'm guessing in hind-sight there will be a few people who say "I tried to tell them they should put in a better weight room, but I was oppressed!" But the truth is likely that the women's tournament committee is composed of more junior NCAA project managers who were working with a limited budget. They likely didn't prioritize the weight room and decals in order to spend elsewhere where they thought it was more important. It's a good lesson on the value of perception over reality (in terms of where to spend your budget.)
As to the question: "Should the NCAA spend exactly the same amount of money for both the men's and women's basketball tournaments?" On the one hand you could argue that it should all be 100% equal with no acknowledgement of the differences in the scale (ticket draw, advertising, media interest, etc.) On the other hand you could easily construct an argument that it should be 100% proportional to the revenue generation, which would not be reasonable since it means the women's tourney would get even less budget than they currently get.
I can see both sides of the argument, but I land on the 'reasonable explanation' side. Once you say that both tourneys must be treated 100% equally, you'll have to ask why basketball gets more money from the NCAA than, say, Lacrosse. In the end most people would agree that the NCAA shouldn't spend 100% equal amounts for both basketball and lacrosse tourneys because they are different. So where do you get to make that distinction and where not? Only when gender and race can be used as a baiting argument? Be careful there, as the black-dominated basketball NCAA sport gets a heck of a lot more money than the almost Lilly-white lacrosse tourney!
I think the big issue with the discussion is that people tend to move to extreme positions and not trying to understand the actual details. Some people believe that it should be equal dollar for dollar and that anyone who doesn't believe that is an idiot and shouldn't be listened to. Other people believe that it should be based solely on revenue generated and that anyone who says otherwise is simply whining and shouldn't be listened to. Neither of those groups of people even pay attention to the details.
The NCAA pays the travel budget for teams that are in NCAA tournaments. Should the men's teams get a larger travel budget than women's teams?
With respect to the courts, logos on the courts, and branding: An argument being made is that fewer people watch women's basketball so the NCAA shouldn't spend money on such things. In my opinion, that involves circular reasoning. If the NCAA doesn't brand and promote women's basketball, then there is zero chance of gaining a larger audience and pulling in more revenue. The NCAA cannot dictate that fans multiply, but it doesn't look like they have been doing anything to try to influence people to watch.
On the NCAA website, they have a page that shows operating costs for tournaments.(although it is very old, 2011-2012 latest figures) Back then, they spent about $90 million on 89 championship tournaments across all three divisions. About $79 million of that was for travel costs.(As I insinuated before, it would be difficult to justify different travel costs by gender and it would also be difficult to justify differences by race.) That only leaves $11 million for funding the actual tournaments.(arena rentals, arena workers, supplies, and whatever else). There can't be that big of a difference in how they pay for the lacrosse tournament than the men's basketball tournament. They are using Lucas Oil Stadium for the basketball championship this year. They used UCON's field last year for lacrosse and have in the past used Gillette Stadium and Lincoln Financial Field. It doesn't look like there is much difference in the facilities to me.
I do think you are probably correct that they used a lower level of organizers. I have no idea how the branding wasn't included in the women's tournament. I would suspect that the weight facilities were included for the men because of COVID. The teams are isolated in the hotels, and the limited hotel facilities probably can't be trusted to be sanitized, so they decided to place equipment and have sanitization protocols. The problem is probably that upper level management wasn't paying attention and didn't implement such things across the PM teams. It would not have the appearance of being a systematic gender thing, except that it appears that every single difference in what the management teams did favored the men's tournament. If the men's tournament didn't have courts with logos on it during the first round and women did, but the men had better workout facilities, then it would appear that the management teams concentrated in different areas. As things turned out, exactly what did the women's committee concentrate on?
