Whether or not you watched the NCAA Women’s Final Four is irrelevant. The games set ratings records for the Women’s Tournament, and Iowa’s semi-final win over South Carolina is the most-watched college basketball game ESPN has aired since 2008. That includes both men’s and women’s games.
The growing popularity of the women’s game matters, but the timing may matter even more.
“I think this is definitely something that’s on our radar,” New NCAA President Charlie Baker told NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday. “The program, I think, is at exactly the right time peaking here because the contract is up.”
The current NCAA Championships television package with ESPN is set to expire in 2024. The women’s basketball tournament is part of that agreement. Several experts have concluded that inclusion in that contract severely undervalues the tournament.
Baker told host Chuck Todd that stars like Aliyah Boston and Caitlin Clark turned the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament into must-see television this season. He and his staff know it won’t be the last time and want to maximize the event’s value going forward. That would mean testing the value of the tournament as its own television package.
“We do have an opportunity to put it out separately and we’re going to work really hard to make sure that those student-athletes, those schools, those programs get what I would describe as what they should get,” he said.
Currently, the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament loses money each year. That is under the terms of the NCAA Championships contract with ESPN. The network pays a total of $34 million for 29 events.
A study commissioned by the NCAA last year estimates that by 2025, when a new TV contract would begin, the women’s basketball tournament would be worth between $81 and $112 million on its own.
