Examining what the NCAA should do with its soon-to-be-ending TV deal for the women’s basketball tournament

When the NCAA women’s basketball tournament ends Sunday with its first title game on network TV (ABC) since 1995, it will mark the latest consequential moment for a sport surging in popularity. The question now for stakeholders: How best to financially capitalize on the increasing value of the NCAA tournament?

There is no clear-cut answer.

It is almost universally recognized within the industry that the media rights deal for the women’s tournament – which expires following the 2023-24 season – is significantly undervalued. But there is no consensus on the best way to address the issue as the NCAA prepares for the property’s upcoming rights negotiations.

In the current deal, signed in 2011, the rights for the women’s tournament are packaged with the rights for 28 other NCAA championships (all but FBS football and men’s basketball). ESPN pays the NCAA all of $34 million annually for the package. How undervalued may that figure be? Two years ago, an independent law firm hired by the NCAA to investigate gender equity issues estimated that the women’s tournament rights alone are worth between $81 million and $112 million annually.

What’s the best strategy for the NCAA to avoid leaving significant dollars on the table in this rights deal? That’s the tricky part. It is working with consulting firm Endeavor to determine whether to unbundle the rights for the women’s tournament from the other championships and take it to market as a standalone property. But while prominent women’s coaches, including South Carolina’s Dawn Staley, have advocated for unbundling the rights, several industry sources told On3 that the upcoming decision is anything but a no-brainer. 

“That’s a very complicated question,” said AAC commissioner Mike Aresco, a former CBS Sports and ESPN executive. “There is something to be said for separating out the women’s tournament and selling it separately, especially if networks don’t want the other sports or don’t have room for them. But since ESPN is the main network, they probably enjoy having some of those others.

“You can bifurcate it, see what the value is for each share. There is no question that the women’s tournament is far more valuable than it was. It is a terrific time to be negotiating because the rights fees have gone up, women’s sports are more popular than ever and the women’s tournament has proven how exciting the games are.”

A source familiar with the NCAA’s thinking said the association will work with Endeavor to value the rights and look at different packaging options before the NCAA finalizes a strategy to take to market, first with ESPN and potentially with other entities. Whether the NCAA unbundles the package has yet to be determined, the source said, “but the NCAA is going to be creative and open-minded.”

To unbundle or not, that is the question

Interest in women’s basketball is increasing. This regular season was the most-viewed on ESPN networks in eight years, up 11 percent from last season. The NCAA tournament’s first round this season saw a 27 percent ratings increase from last year. And last year’s title game, matching South Carolina and UConn, averaged 4.85 million viewers, the most for a women’s title game since 2004. 

When asked if the NCAA should unbundle the rights, Neal Pilson, the former longtime CBS Sports president, told On3, “Yes, absolutely. It has grown dramatically in stature. For a long time, it was bundled because no one was really sure it could stand on its own. And no one wanted to take that risk of going into the marketplace and not having a competitive situation. You look at all the markers now: attendance, ratings, sponsor commitments. You talk about the growth of women’s sports – the best indicator, in my judgment, is not women’s soccer. It’s women’s basketball.”

Pilson acknowledged that it is a “fair question” to ask what effect unbundling the women’s tournament rights would have on the value of the 28 other championships. But he said a better argument is to avoid continuing to undervalue the women’s tournament by continuing to package it with dozens of other events.

On the other hand, Justin Beitler, senior analyst, media rights consulting at Octagon, told On3 that the main reason the rights to the women’s tournament should remain packaged with the other championships is to “not remove the jewel from the crown in the entire NCAA championships media rights package.” If you remove the women’s tournament, he said, all of the other championships – baseball, softball, volleyball, etc. – could suffer in rights revenue.

“The solution is to keep it all together, but at the same time, have a specific public allocation for the women’s basketball championships piece, so everyone understands the kind of value or the going rate of this tournament,” Beitler said.

For instance, if the entire championship package went for $100 million, the media rights holder would be required by the NCAA to publicly disclose, hypothetically, that $60 million of the $100 million goes to the women’s tournament.

3 championships possess true value

Whatever strategy emerges will depend on what the NCAA is hoping to accomplish. Does it primarily want to keep as much inventory as possible on linear platforms? If so, splitting up the women’s basketball rights to multiple partners could be the play. Other interested linear partners could become bidders if ESPN’s exclusive negotiating window passes by. Fox, NBC, CBS or a cable network could step forward for a slice of the women’s tournament package to open up more linear windows for inventory. All indications are that ESPN wants to retain the rights.

Beitler also wondered if there are other ways to bolster the value of the rights. He floated the idea of NCAA tournament expansion or sports betting and/or data collection rights being put on the table as part of the next round of negotiations. “There are a couple of levers the NCAA could pull here to alter the value of these rights as well,” he said. 

And there are other considerations. One veteran TV source said three sports in the current championship package possess true value: women’s basketball, softball and baseball. Last year, the Women’s College World Series averaged 1.7 million viewers (peaking at 2.1), while the Men’s College World Series averaged 1.6 million. Women’s volleyball is a popular sport on television as well, but not to the extent of the aforementioned Big Three.

Softball is as popular of a TV sport as women’s basketball, the source said, adding, “I have heard discussions over the years that if as much time and money was devoted to softball as is provided to women’s basketball, some think softball would be way ahead. Women’s basketball isn’t such a TV performer that it can be assured of cashing in without softball and the College World Series. All three, in some way, provide leverage for the other.”

Is $100 million market value?

Bringing the women’s tournament up to fair market value will be welcomed by the NCAA. The 2019 tournament lost $2.8 million and those losses have multiplied the past two year since the organization increased spending after vast disparities between the men’s and women’s tournament were revealed. Industry sources say the potential of the women’s tournament – in terms of rights revenue and interest – is far from being maximized because it has yet to be promoted and celebrated sufficiently. But that is coming. (For that matter, as On3 has reported, the NCAA men’s tournament is extremely undervalued as well.)

Dan Butterly, the Big West commissioner and member of the Men’s Basketball Oversight Committee, said there is much more attention being paid to women’s basketball now, and for good reason, because their stories haven’t been told as well over the years compared to the men. 

“It is the right opportunity to unbundle it,” Butterly told On3. “There’s additional championships, such as baseball and softball and women’s volleyball, that draw really good numbers. It’s not Progressive Insurance where you save money. It’s the networks that are saving money by bundling. Unbundling may be a benefit for the NCAA.”

Navigate, which specializes in college and pro sports rights valuations, provided On3 with data that indicated fair market value for the women’s tournament as a standalone property is $105 million annually. It said viewership is around 650,000 viewers per game compared to 10 million per game for the men’s tournament, so from a benchmarking perspective, that’s about 7% of the total viewership. Should the women’s tournament expand to 90 teams – the Division I Transformation Committee’s recommendation for both tournaments is being assessed by the Men’s and Women’s Basketball committees this year – then Navigate said the women’s tournament could command as much as $140 million per year. 

“That is why they are trying to break it up,” Matt Balvanz, Navigate’s senior vice president for analytics and innovation, told On3 about the potential to unbundle. More broadly, he believes there may be moves to splinter conferences’ media rights in the future, both between football and basketball and also men’s versus women’s sports because they have standalone value. What’s more, he said, “with Title IX and student rights and wanting to be fairly compensated, you’re going to need ways to directly kind of associate what those buckets look like.”

On the women’s rights in particular, he believes there may be more upside with women’s viewership than with men’s, relatively speaking. If some 20 percent of men’s basketball fans could be converted to watch the women’s tournament, as well, it could double the viewership with the right marketing plan, the right network and hitting the right demographics with the right advertising campaign.

“The ceiling is higher for the women’s side,” he said, “because not a lot of innovation has gone into how that is broadcast or who that is reaching.”

The TV source, speaking on condition of anonymity to protect sensitive relationships, pushed back on figures from the independent law firm the NCAA enlisted in 2021, Kaplan Hecker & Fink, as well those from Navigate. 

“I can tell you this: Whoever said a couple years ago that women’s basketball alone is worth more than $100 million needs to get back on his or her meds,” the source said. “The total TV audience in 2022 was 37 million. Baseball and softball were 32 million each without the same level of hype. If they have a satisfactory plan for exposing the other sports, I guess it doesn’t matter. But I’d definitely keep the Big Three together.”

‘Women’s basketball can stand on its own’

The issues at hand run deeper. Amy Perko, CEO of the reform-minded Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics, said a priority needs to be made to ensure that the NCAA is providing staffing and leadership to adequately address the women’s tournament rights analysis, and that those resources are comparable with what is provided on the men’s side. She said another aspect in the Kaplan report that hasn’t been sufficiently acted upon is the NCAA providing organizational priority to this issue.

In addition, she also pointed out the misnomer that a new media rights deal must be secured before the NCAA can move on beginning to award financial units for the success of women’s teams in the NCAA tournament. This year, for instance, the NCAA will award more than $170 million for the success of men’s teams in the tournament but zero dollars for the success of women’s teams. If and when changes occur on that front, the majority of those financial units on the women’s side could come, at least initially, from the pool of dollars from the men’s lucrative media rights deal. 

“It’s been interesting, frankly, the number of even strong women’s basketball advocates who are confusing the two and think that the media contract has to come first before there can be a unit,” Perko said. “That is not our position. The NCAA is not structured as a sports-specific entity.”

One who is conflating the issues is UCLA coach Cori Close. Before the Sweet 16, Close said “it needs to happen hand in hand. … As a new media rights deal is worked on hopefully by the NCAA for a standalone deal with women’s basketball in that space, I think there needs to be a meaningful unit distribution associated with that.”

Ratings are strong. And attendance is pointing upward; this season saw the highest attendance ever for the first two rounds. The question remains whether shopping the women’s tournament as a separate property is the most financially prudent move.

“It should happen,” South Carolina’s Staley said last week. “We’re at that place where we’re in high demand. I do believe women’s basketball can stand on its own and be a huge revenue-producing sport that could do, to a certain extent, what men’s basketball has done for all those other sports, all those other Olympic sports and women’s basketball.

“I do believe we were probably at a place years ago, but until we’re able to have the decision-makers give us that opportunity … . It’s slowly building up to that because there’s proof in the numbers.”