For the first time in its 42-year history, more people watched the women’s NCAA basketball final than watched the men’s final. Shan & RJ hosts Shan Shariff, RJ Choppy and Bobby Belt talked about the topic this morning on 105.3 The Fan in Dallas.
“The ratings came out for the Final Four, both men and women,” Choppy said. “Obviously the women had 18.7 million. The UConn-Alabama Final Four game had 14.8 million…the final game had just under 15 million. They didn’t win. You don’t win when you are on network TV and then the other one is on TBS, a network that has no people just there on it. This is the dumbest thing I have ever seen. The whole notion that the question is being asked…is the men’s game in trouble?…The men’s game destroyed the NBA finals and Major League Baseball’s World Series. The men’s game is just fine.”
Shariff added, “This doesn’t have to be an indictment on men’s basketball.”
“This is not men versus women,” Choppy said. “Next year, the women’s tournament will not have 10 million people watching it. It was Caitlin Clark. South Carolina is unwatchable. LSU, outside of Angel Reese, unwatchable. Cailtin Clark, not unwatchable, very watchable.”
Shariff looked at the big picture and said, “The fact that we are even having a discussion like this is a huge win for the women. Never thought we would ever have this conversation.”
Booby Belt mentioned the start time of the men’s game being an issue, as the fan bases of the two teams, UConn and Purdue, are in the eastern time zone where the game started around 9:30 p.m. Belt also pointed out that ABC, which showed the women’s final, reaches 305 million homes, whereas TBS reaches 71 million.
“You still had to make the choice to watch women’s basketball…it’s a huge win,” said Shariff.
Belt then talked about the narrative of the women’s game being close to the same popularity as the men’s game in the overall scheme of things. “It’s intellectually dishonest that people are trying to push it as ‘look at this, it’s just as popular.’ Ok then why is the revenue that the Final Four brought in for the women’s game $25 million and the men’s was $200 million…just talk about them within their own context and stop trying to make it so much about ‘women beat the men’…they want it to be the narrative so bad and that’s what I think is a little silly.”
