If you build it...
The NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament is the highlight of March, just two years after being treated like an afterthought
Two years ago, Oregon Ducks center Sedona Prince posted a video highlighting the shocking differences between the men’s and women’s setups for the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
Sedona’s video went viral and caused the NCAA to conduct a gender-equity review in college basketball. A few damning takeaways from that report on the 2021 tournament experience:
The NCAA was using the term “March Madness” to refer only to the men’s tournament. The host sites for the women’s tournament (and the midcourt logo) only read “NCAA Women’s Basketball.” That changed after Sedona’s video. The NCAA now uses “March Madness” to refer to both the men’s and women’s tournament.
The NCAA provided first round and second round gifts to men’s and women’s participants. The NCAA spent twice as much on the gifts and mementos for men ($125.55) compared to the women ($60.42). Additionally, the NCAA spent $70K on toiletries and other accessories for the 68 men’s teams, but provided no such items to the women’s teams.
The NCAA budgeted for on-site photographers for the entirety of the men’s tourney but only for the Sweet 16 and later rounds of the women’s tourney. After media backlash, the NCAA scrambled and found photographers to cover the first and second rounds of the women’s tourney.
For the first and second rounds, the NCAA spent $125.55 per player on gifts and mementos distributed at the men’s tournament, whereas it spent only $60.42 per player—or less than half as much—on gifts and mementos distributed at the women’s tournament.
The NCAA has historically sold the media rights to the men’s tournament and women’s tournament in different ways.
For the men: Turner Sports and CBS Sports pay the NCAA $771.4 million annually to (1) broadcast the men’s tourney and (2) exclusively license NCAA marks, tickets and taglines in commercial promotions. That $771.4 million figure will become $1.1 billion when the new 8 year contract starts in 2024.
For the women: ESPN pays the NCAA $34 million per year to broadcast the women’s tourney and 28 other NCAA championships. Media expert Ed Desser estimates that the annual broadcast rights for women’s basketball alone could be worth at least $81 million in 2025.
2021 was the first year that all 63 games of the women’s tournament were televised on a major network.
There’s not been much chatter about whether the conditions for the athletes have improved in notable ways, but the NCAA and ESPN have done a better job promoting the women’s tourney. As a result, they have started to see immediate results.
The women’s tournament has seen an uptick in ratings. The Sweet Sixteen games were up 73% vs last year and the Elite Eight games were up 43% vs last year, too. Sunday’s Elite Eight matchup between Iowa and Louisville hit 250 viewers on ESPN, the largest audience on record for a women’s tournament game outside of the Final Four.
The Final Four starts Friday and should be (as I explained in a recent TikTok) incredibly fun. Resale tickets for the women’s Final Four are currently more expensive than tickets for the men’s Final Four ($330 vs $72). Sure, there’s a roughly 50k capacity difference between the American Airlines Center (host of the women’s Final Four) and NRG Stadium in Houston (host of the men’s Final Four). But there’s no denying that people want to see…
Will South Carolina can become the first undefeated champion since UConn or will Caitlin Clark and McKenna Warnock stop them in their tracks?
Can LSU reach the promised land in Kim Mulkey’s second season as coach?
Is Virginia Tech legit?
Should be a fun weekend in Dallas.