It was never just about Caitlin Clark.
No doubt there are people who thought women’s basketball would fade back to niche sports status without Clark and the white-hot spotlight that follows her. That the boom of the last few years was solely from people who tuned in to watch Clark drain 3s from the logo and break records.
Tiger Woods aside, however, sports booms are rarely driven by only one athlete and the explosion of interest in women’s basketball is no different. The proof is in the numbers:
At least half a dozen games drew 1 million or more viewers this season, led by the 2.23 million who tuned in to watch JuJu Watkins vs. Paige Bueckers, err, USC vs. UConn, in December. That game was the second-most-watched women’s game ever on Fox. There were 15 games just on ESPN that drew 500,000-plus viewers.
ESPN’s ratings for women’s basketball were up 3% from last year – and a whopping 41% from two years ago.
Ratings for the ACC tournament were up 23% from last year, while the Big 12 saw a 126% increase for its tournament.
South Carolina, Iowa and UConn sold out their season tickets, with the Gamecocks and Hawkeyes ranking in the top 15 of all NCAA programs, men’s or women’s, in average attendance.
The average price for a 30-second spot in this year’s NCAA championship game has more than doubled from last year, going for almost $440,000, according to Sports Business Journal. Most ad spots for the entire tournament have sold out.
The tournament began Wednesday night with the First Four. First-round games begin Friday.
‘Women’s sports are a thing now,’ said Jane McManus, author of ‘The Fast Track: Inside the Surging Business of Women’s Sports.’
‘There are hardcore football, baseball or (men’s) basketball fans who are always going to be antagonistic to women’s sports. For those who aren’t antagonistic, there’s a sense women’s sports are now in the pool of sports,’ McManus said. ‘That’s a real change. When you hit that generalized sports interest, more fans are going to encounter. It just becomes part of the sports landscape, and I think that’s what’s happening with women’s sports now.
‘Once people hear about it, it’s hard to un-ring that bell.’
Especially because the recent progress has led to foundational changes that will generate more growth.
For years, teams in the men’s tournament have earned ‘units” for every game they played, money that can eventually be put back into their programs. Last year, each unit was worth about $2 million.
Until this season, women’s teams didn’t get units because the NCAA said their tournament didn’t have a large enough unique revenue stream. (The men’s units are based on the monster media rights deal with CBS.) But the NCAA’s latest media rights deal with ESPN includes a specific valuation for the women’s basketball tournament, $65 million, paving the way for the women to finally get paid like the men do.
The fund is $15 million, so the payouts will be smaller initially. Still, it’s a start. Schools will be able to use that money for facilities, recruiting, coaches’ salaries — all things imperative to the continued growth of the game.
‘It really gives the women a seat at the table,” said Atlantic 10 commissioner Bernadette McGlade, who was on the women’s basketball committee when it first requested units a quarter-century ago.
And it won’t just be that money that schools will have to invest. There are corporate partners and prospective sponsors who now direct their money specifically to women’s sports, because they recognize the return on investment is higher.
‘Money does talk, and it opens doors. It elevates respect,’ McGlade said. ‘I think that women’s sports have turned the corner. Absolutely. And I don’t think there’s any downturn that’s going to happen.”
It doesn’t hurt that the women’s game went right from Clark and Angel Reese to Watkins and Bueckers. The two are commercial stars with solid name recognition — something that can’t be said about many in the men’s tournament beyond Cooper Flagg.
That’s another area that will ensure the women’s game continues to grow. Unlike the men, who can, and often do, leave college after a year, women have to be at least 22 years old and have either exhausted their eligibility, graduated or be four years removed from high school to enter the WNBA draft. That means the public has the time to get to know these players and become invested in them.
Bueckers played in three Final Fours in her first four years at UConn (she missed the 2022-23 season with a torn ACL) and won her first ESPY after her freshman season. Watkins is only a sophomore, and already fans show up to her road games wearing her jersey and sporting her signature ‘JuJu Bun.’
‘That’s a really neat thing. I think it has cultural significance,” USC coach Lindsay Gottlieb said.
‘Caitlin Clark wasn’t the first great player, and she wasn’t the first incredible personality. But she was the first one that got that kind of coverage and galvanized things in a really significant way,’ Gottlieb said. ‘So I do think … to roll right into the players that are in our game now, Juju and the other big stars, the synergy of that has worked well to not have there be a letdown.”
The interest in women’s basketball might not be at the heights it was under Clark. But it continues to grow. There’s no going back now.
Follow USA TODAY Sports columnist Nancy Armour on social media @nrarmour.