Women’s college basketball used to be the odd sport out in college athletics. People used to write it off as a boring, unimportant and inconsequential sport. That is not the case anymore, as the women’s side of college hoops has finally caught up with the men’s side in terms of viewership and interest.
Caitlin Clark. Paige Bueckers. JuJu Watkins. Angel Reese. Hailey Van Lith. Even some of the most casual basketball fans recognize those names because of the buzz they create for women’s basketball.
“When I first started (playing in college), when I was a freshman, we couldn’t even use the March Madness branding, and now to see this … I expected to continue to grow this year, and I think that’s the coolest thing,” Iowa player Clark said.
This year’s NCAA Women’s March Madness has broken record after record for viewership, toppling even last year’s record-breaking tournament.
The Women’s March Madness championship ratings have skyrocketed over the past three years, going from around 5.5 and 6.1 million viewers in 2021 and 2022 to a staggering 12.6 million in last year’s LSU versus Iowa dogfight. These numbers have grown to rival those of the men’s championship and even the NBA Finals.
All of this came to a head during the Iowa versus LSU rematch on April 1. When the viewership analytics came out, they showed that the Elite Eight matchup between the Hawkeyes and the Tigers was not just the most viewed women’s basketball game of all time, but it also out ranked every MLB, NHL and MLS game from the last season; furthermore, only one NBA game and one college football game had higher viewership.
What has caused the sudden uptick?
The answer is simple: The storylines, star power, parity and entertainment value are just about on par with the men’s game; in some cases, the women’s game even outperforms the men’s.
This is not a knock on men’s college basketball, but there are no pressing storylines that draw in fans, or at least none that compare to the women’s game right now. Some people may rush to point out UConn and its potential back-to-back championship run, or Purdue’s quest to finally make a Final Four under Head Coach Matt Painter after years of disappointment. These are important storylines, but they pale in comparison to the drama we saw in LSU versus South Carolina in the SEC Tournament championship game, the aforementioned LSU versus Iowa, UConn women’s quest to return to the pinnacle and the emergence of Watkins and USC as perennial contenders.
“The storylines surrounding women’s basketball are nonstop and compelling,” sportscaster Ana Schatz said to Forbes writer Susan Shaw. “There are a dozen teams which have serious action to win it all, which keeps coverage and scoreboard watch at an all-time high. The parity and depth of high-level teams is truly something to behold.”
Another component that has allowed the game to flourish is the support from men in college basketball as well as the NBA.
“Stakeholders in the sport can point to other factors that led to a spike in popularity, including a more fluid group of teams making deep NCAA Tournament runs and a legion of NBA players using their social media platforms to promote women’s basketball and make it more socially acceptable for men to watch,” USA Today’s Dan Wolken reported.
Something that has become very evident is that women’s college basketball is rich in superstars, while men’s college basketball is, for lack of better words, falling behind the curve.
A big reason for this fact is women’s basketball players, by rule, cannot enter the draft and have to stay at the college level until they do one of three things: graduate, play four years or reach the age of 22. This has severely impacted the product of women’s college basketball in a positive way for multiple reasons.
The players have so much time to develop, fans get to spend time with players for more than one year and programs are able to build their rosters more sustainably. All of these factors culminate in a favorable, entertaining and competitive product that, as of late, has drawn massive viewership numbers.
The men, on the other hand, are allowed to enter the NBA draft after only one year of college, and, like it or not, that has had a negative impact on the entertainment value of men’s college basketball. For starters, it causes a wave of hyper-talented players who opt to go a route other than college, a fact that is personified in many consensus NBA mock drafts that show five out of the top 15 players selected are from overseas or the NBA G-League Ignite team.
Additionally, men’s players like Reed Sheppard, Rob Dillingham, Jared McCain and Cody Williams are set to enter the NBA draft after only playing one year in college. The men’s game is constantly having to replenish its superstars.
Conversely, Clark, Bueckers, Reese and Van Lith have been in college for four years, so all of them have had a chance to make lasting impacts on their respective programs and fans during their tenure.
South Carolina’s Dawn Staley has long been a proponent and advocate for women’s basketball. Now that women’s basketball is getting the national attention it deserves, can anything hold back the sport?
“It’s a double-edged sword when it comes to this answer,” Staley said. “I’ve said it before that it’s been intentional to hold women’s basketball back. It’s no longer intentional anymore because they see we’re bursting at the seams.”
Women’s college basketball was never supposed to directly compete with men’s college basketball, but it seems as though the two sides are in a fairly even battle in terms of entertainment value.
College basketball is at its finest when both sides are firing all cylinders, and this year is a perfect example. Both Elite Eights provided some of the most entertaining basketball of the last decade, and this weekend’s upcoming Final Fours seem like they could be even better.
Andreya Carter is a former college basketball star and now works as a sports analyst and broadcaster for ESPN.
“There’s definitely buy-in, and now that the conversations we’re having on ‘First Take’ and ‘Get Up’, they’re getting attention once they are put out there on social media, people are adding into the conversation and giving their opinions,” Carter said. “So for the coordinating producers on those shows to see women’s college basketball being a hot topic and people wanting to talk about it and wanting to jump in the conversation after the show is over, that’s a good sign.”
