How will women's basketball continue to rise to new heights? Ball's in ESPN's court

The expected is now official: Sunday’s South Carolina–Iowa women’s national title game attracted the largest audience ever to watch a women’s college basketball game.

In total, an average of 18.7 million watched the Gamecocks beat Caitlin Clark’s Hawkeyes on Sunday afternoon on ABC and ESPN, with an extraordinary peak of 24 million. To put that number in perspective, regular-season NFL games averaged 17.9 million viewers this past season.

The title game was the most-watched basketball game — men’s or women’s, college or pro — since 2019. And excluding football and the Olympics, it was the most-watched sporting event since 2019.

The big question? Will that women’s championship figure eclipse the audience for tonight’s UConn–Purdue men’s national title game on a cable network, TBS?

The bigger question? How will the women’s game continue to rise to new heights?

Answer: The ball is in ESPN’s court.

Given the growing popularity of the women’s game, how the cable network continues to evolve its plans to promote and showcase the game and its stars will be critical. The NCAA in January secured an eight-year, $920 million extension with ESPN to broadcast 40 NCAA championships, most notably the women’s basketball tournament.

For a network that has exclusive control over how the women’s tournament is broadcast to an ever-widening audience through 2032, it’s a golden opportunity.

Popularity extends beyond Caitlin Clark Effect

The enormous audience for Sunday’s title game punctuates a milestone season for women’s basketball, during which its reach extended far beyond its traditional audience.

Much of that can be attributed to the Caitlin Clark Effect. The transcendent star, who scored 30 points in her final college game, became college basketball’s all-time scoring leader, an NIL commercial sensation and a can’t-miss attraction every time she touched a basketball.

Women’s college hoops will miss her.

On his radio show Monday, Tony Kornheiser shared an idea hatched by a friend: “If you ran ESPN, you go to Caitlin Clark and you say we will give you $10 million in any denomination you want to stay one more year in college. Your ratings are so fabulous, and we’re making so much money as a result of that, that we want this to happen again.

“Because she’s not going to have that impact in the WNBA. The WNBA does not have the impact of college basketball on the women’s side. It just doesn’t. She stays one more year in college, she is the rising tide that floats the boats.”

Plenty of stars for future of sport

But it’s the depth of stars and storylines in the women’s game that is establishing a sustainable level of heightened popularity for the sport. Long deprived of adequate platforms, promotion and resources, it now has center stage to shine.

TV executives told On3 that the audience for the women’s national title game would have been even greater had ABC broadcast the game – a rematch of last season’s national semifinals – in primetime on Sunday. 

Still, the audience eclipsed that of Iowa’s narrow national semifinal victory over UConn on Friday, typically not a fabulous night to maximize ratings. Yet, some 14 million watched the game, whose outcome was heavily impacted in the final seconds by a much-debated illegal screen call.

That audience marked the largest for any basketball game – college or pro – ever on ESPN.

What is apt comparison for state of women’s basketball?

Inarguably, women’s basketball has been undervalued and underexposed.

Forcing comparisons between the sport’s surge in popularity with other historical moments or eras – especially in professional sports – is fraught with issues. We simply don’t know how popular women’s basketball could have been for years had it not been consistently marginalized.

A recent Washington Post editorial on women’s basketball featured the headline: “This moment feels akin to that of the 1990s Chicago Bulls with Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen, or when soccer star Brandi Chastain won the World Cup for Team USA and ripped off her shirt.”

Seriously, the Jordan-led Bulls?

The comparison to the Jordan dynasty with the Bulls in the 1990s is, well, peculiar. By the time Jordan won his first of six NBA titles in 1991, he was already a commercial titan, his Nikes worn by every kid who could muster up the dollars. 

In fact, it was the contrasting tandem of Magic Johnson and Larry Bird who rescued the league from poor ratings and tape-delayed NBA Finals games in the early 1980s. And beginning in 1984, it was new commissioner David Stern who unlocked the marketing of individual stars and stretched the game’s reach globally.

Many of the comments on the Washington Post’s editorial rightly note the flawed comparison of women’s hoops in 2024 to the Jordan-led Bulls dynasty.

ESPN to play key role in women’s hoops’ next chapter

A more apt, yet still imperfect comparison for what women’s college basketball is experiencing now – and specifically Sunday’s Iowa-South Carolina matchup – is the ignition point that was the Michigan State–Indiana State men’s national title game in 1979.

To be clear, we’re not comparing Michigan State’s Johnson with Clark, nor are we saying Indiana State’s Bird reminds us of one of the South Carolina stars, of which there are many.

What the 1979 title game did do was launch college basketball and the NCAA Tournament specifically into a different stratosphere. A few years later, a golden age of men’s college basketball – consisting of star-studded epic national title games in 1982, 1983 and 1985 – further juiced the sport’s popularity.

As Jim Boeheim told me years ago, a fair amount of credit also goes to ESPN, whose heavy college basketball programming in the 1980s – specifically bringing a quaint, yet rugged Northeast basketball conference, the Big East, to national viewers propelled the sport as well.

Looking forward, ESPN will continue to play a leading role in elevating the women’s game to new heights.

Did NCAA leave money on table with ESPN deal? 

Given the success of this year’s women’s tournament, it begs the question: Did the NCAA leave money on the table by locking down the media rights extension for the women’s tournament with ESPN in January?

That was before this year’s March Madness demonstrated that the sport has reached even greater heights than anyone anticipated. The financials of the current deal, agreed to in 2011, entails ESPN paying a relatively paltry $34 million annually for the entire package of 29 NCAA championships.

Yes, that stands in sharp contrast to the new deal, in which the women’s tournament alone is valued at $65 million annually.

However, media consultants John Kosner and Ed Desser authored the NCAA Gender Equity Media & Sponsorship Analysis in the summer of 2021, projecting that the women’s rights for the next TV deal would be worth between $81 and $112 million annually. In contrast, beginning next year the men’s tournament rights will be worth $1.1 billion annually.

Given the remarkable viewership numbers for this year’s women’s tournament, especially for later-round games, could the NCAA have reaped an even larger payday had it waited a few months?

Neal Pilson, who served two stints as CBS Sports president in the 1980s and 90s as the men’s tournament surged in popularity, says no, the NCAA did not leave money on the table.

“Remember, there were no other bidders – only ESPN,” Pilson told On3 on Sunday. “And ESPN was well aware of that fact. The final deal is an accurate reflection of the value of multiple championships, including the women’s tournament.

“Yes, the NCAA might have gotten more for the tournament if it had bid it out separately, but there is only a negative value for all the other sports. So the net to the NCAA would have been lower. Frankly, the NCAA would have had to produce and sell and buy time for the remaining package – and lose money.”

Trajectory pointing straight up

By any measure, the trajectory of women’s basketball is pointing straight up. Let’s leave head-scratching Jordan comparisons aside.

As the transcendent Clark heads to the WNBA, you can see a golden age for women’s basketball on the immediate horizon. How ESPN plans to market, promote and showcase its emerging stars and storylines will define the sport’s next chapter and determine just how golden this post-Caitlin Clark era will be.