Women’s College Basketball Is a Worthy Investment

The NCAA women’s-basketball season officially concluded a banner season on Sunday with breathless drama, even though it wasn’t a surprise ending.

In a season stocked with unprecedented highs, the heavily favored University of South Carolina Gamecocks won the national championship over the University of Iowa. A slew of viewing records were set as millions witnessed the entire sport reach a new zenith thanks to the massive popularity of the Iowa superstar Caitlin Clark, the Gamecocks’ dominance, and the dynamic personalities of Louisiana State University.

But now what?

Clark’s brilliant college career is now over. She is the presumed top pick in next week’s WNBA draft. South Carolina is etched in the record books as the 10th program in Division I history to complete an undefeated season and the fifth program in women’s-college-basketball history to win three national titles. And Angel Reese of LSU—who lost her bid for a second straight national championship after Clark’s Iowa beat her team in the Elite Eight—is moving on to the WNBA, where she is expected to be a lottery pick.

[Alex Kirshner: Caitlin Clark is just the beginning]

Women in this sport have been told for decades that if they just give people a fantastic product to watch, charismatic personalities, and compelling storylines, then they will be rewarded with the same attention and investment that has been automatic for the men. It’s the old chicken-or-the-egg argument, but it hasn’t mattered whether the women are the chicken or the egg—the investment hasn’t matched the quality of the product the women have presented.

Things have to be different now. This was possibly the greatest  women’s-college-basketball season ever, as evidenced by the blockbuster ratings delivered in this year’s NCAA tournament. For the first time, more people watched the women’s national championship game than the men’s, marking the third time over the course of the week that the women set a television-ratings record. It was the natural punctuation to a season in which audiences for women’s games jumped 37 percent across ESPN platforms, and women’s-basketball games on Fox networks averaged more viewers than the men.

After last year’s national-championship game between LSU and Iowa garnered a then-record 9.9 million viewers, there was some skepticism about whether the women could continue to deliver those same gigantic ratings. Instead, they did even better. Last week’s much-hyped rematch between Iowa and LSU drew 12.3 million viewers. Four days later, more than 14 million people watched Clark bounce the perennial power University of Connecticut from the NCAA tournament. And then for Sunday’s championship game, the women delivered a rating that’s more likely to be associated with the NFL. The South Carolina–Iowa game averaged 18.7 million viewers.

Not only was the final the most-watched women’s-basketball game of all time and the most-watched basketball game overall since 2019, but these games delivered more viewers than last year’s NBA Finals and all but four college-football games during the 2023 season.

“It’s a moment, like people are saying, but it’s more than a moment, you know?” Connecticut head coach Geno Auriemma told reporters. “Sometimes moments become minutes, and minutes become hours, and hours become days. And the next thing you know, it becomes part of the national pastime.”

Unfortunately whenever these moments have occurred in the past, they didn’t necessarily drive the NCAA and the media to give the women the necessary resources and attention. In 1983, the basketball legend Cheryl Miller of the University of Southern California made her debut on national television against Louisiana Tech, the first women’s-basketball team to win an NCAA national championship, the year before. With the championship on the line, the Trojans beat the Lady Techsters—yes, they were called that then—and Miller won her first title as an electrifying USC freshman. Airing on CBS, the game attracted nearly 12 million viewers.

It would have been a perfect opportunity for the organization to elevate a signature women’s sport. All the ingredients were there—a dynamic player in a major media market (Los Angeles), and a dominant rival. But rather than build on the success, the NCAA spent years prioritizing, promoting, and cultivating the men’s-basketball tournament.

Those were not the only opportunities to nurture the women’s game and put it on par with the men. In 1995, the women’s national-title game between Connecticut and then-rival University of Tennessee attracted 7.4 million viewers, back when the women’s Final Four aired exclusively on CBS. The following year, the women’s national basketball team won gold at the Olympics in Atlanta. Then ESPN took over the NCAA tournament as part of a seven-year, $19 million deal, expanding the competition’s reach. And although ESPN certainly deserves credit for helping amplify the women’s game, last year was the first time the network decided to air the championship game on ABC, which played a huge role in the ratings explosion.

[Read: The Title IX loophole that hurts NCAA women’s teams]

Women’s basketball’s struggle to gain its own territory has been a rewarding one. In 1997, the WNBA made its debut, but as the game grew in viewership and talent, the NCAA seemed slow to make changes that would accelerate that growth. It wasn’t until three years ago that the NCAA decided to brand the women’s tournament with its well-known marketing slogan “March Madness,” once reserved for the men. The women’s tournament field also was finally expanded to 68 teams in 2021—a decade after the men had done it.

But these changes didn’t come because the NCAA realized what it had. They came because the NCAA got publicly embarrassed. In 2021, both the men’s and women’s tournaments were conducted in bubble environments because of the coronavirus pandemic. Several women’s players and administrators at the NCAA tournament called out the organization on social media for the obvious disparities in weight-room facilities. The men’s players were given an enormous, well-stocked gym befitting top athletes, while the women were given only a tiny rack for dumbbells and a few yoga mats. The NCAA apologized after receiving a barrage of criticism, but the optics were so disastrous that it was pressured into commissioning an outside firm to conduct a gender-equity review.

The assessment revealed that “the NCAA’s broadcast agreements, corporate sponsorship contracts, distribution of revenue, organizational structure, and culture all prioritize Division I men’s basketball over everything else in ways that create, normalize, and perpetuate gender inequities.” The report also noted that the budget for the 2019 men’s-basketball tournament was more than double that of the women’s, feeding the perception that the men were “worthy of increased investment.”

The evaluation estimated that the annual broadcast rights for women’s basketball would be worth $81 million to $112 million in 2025. Earlier this year, the NCAA reached an eight-year, $920 million deal with ESPN that gives the sports network exclusive rights to 40 championships, including women’s basketball. That translates to $65 million a year for the tournament, which looks like the best value in sports when you consider that CBS and Turner Sports are paying the NCAA $870 million a year to broadcast the men’s-basketball tournament.

Nobody was surprised to learn that the NCAA wasn’t exactly living up to its promises to boost the women’s game. But perhaps one of the more important conclusions from the review is that the NCAA was severely undervaluing the women’s-college-basketball tournament. Women are constantly blamed for the sport’s shortcomings, when in fact they’ve been undermined from the very beginning. Meanwhile, the National Women’s Soccer League signed a cross-platform media-rights deal in November worth $240 million, which is the largest media deal in women’s-sports history. That amount is 40 times higher than the previous deal.

Although it can be tricky comparing professionals to college athletes, the most-watched match the women’s-soccer league has ever played was the 2022 championship, which averaged 915,000 viewers. That same year, the UConn–South Carolina game attracted nearly 5 million viewers, the biggest rating for the title game in almost 20 years. And this was before the title game made its recent return to network television.

Some have speculated that the NCAA erred in not negotiating a separate television deal for women’s basketball.

“We need more networks to compete for our talents,” Dawn Staley, South Carolina’s head coach, said in November. “And I don’t know if that’s happening, but I hope that’s happening in the near future.”

Caitlin Clark has drastically moved the needle in women’s basketball, and there are so many encouraging signs that the game won’t lose steam with her departure to the WNBA. Women’s basketball is healthier than it’s ever been. South Carolina is losing its best player, Kamilla Cardoso, to the WNBA draft, but the bulk of the team returns next year to defend its national title and continue its dynasty. JuJu Watkins, the USC’s blazing freshman guard, was the second-leading scorer in Division I women’s basketball, behind Clark. Watkins annihilated Clark’s freshman scoring record by 121 points and took the Trojans to the Elite Eight. And with USC moving to the Big Ten conference, Watkins is poised to become one of the game’s biggest stars, along with freshmen Hannah Hidalgo of Notre Dame and MiLaysia Fulwiley of South Carolina.

The remarkable growth of the college game has sparked a lot of speculation as to whether that growth will translate to the WNBA, whose season begins May 14. Already, there are signs that concerns the Clark effect won’t carry over are unfounded. Ticket sales for the Indiana Fever—Clark’s likely team—have experienced an astounding 136 percent increase. Also, 36 of the Fever’s 40 games will be televised nationally, giving fans an opportunity to immerse themselves in the star power the rest of the league offers.

The bottom line is that the women have done their part by providing plenty of captivating reasons for the game to thrive. It’s just a matter of whether the gatekeepers will let them down again.