The Women’s NCAA Tournament featured two of the most-watched sporting events of the year. The Friday semifinal between Iowa and UConn was a huge television hit. The Sunday final between Iowa and South Carolina is expected to pull in big numbers. Information on that will be released on Monday, April 8. With the big television figures, the dollars for ESPN are growing. This is why the Women’s NCAA Tournament has arrived at a point where win units and distributed revenues should now be part of the picture for women’s basketball programs and for NCAA member schools.
“A men’s unit in 2022 was $338,211 – around 0.2% of the BPF. If we use the same scale, a women’s basketball unit for 2022 would be worth $43,655.
“For the sake of simplicity, we will not add the 3 percent increase to each season. But even taking that one unit and multiplying it by six seasons, a unit’s full worth is $261,930.
“Remember the numbers up top, about how well the Pac-12 did in the 2021 women’s tournament? That performance would have been good for 18 units.
“So the hypothetical total for the Pac-12 in 2021 would be $4,714,740. Divide that up among the schools evenly and each athletic department would get $392,895. It’s not in the millions. But it’s a whole lot more than zero.”
Guess what? Those win units should be part of next year’s Women’s NCAA Tournaments. Howard Megdal of The Next Hoops has the story.
It’s an exciting time in women’s college basketball. USC and other prominent programs are in position to capitalize on future successes in March Madness.
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