NASHVILLE (PA) — Women’s basketball teams will finally be paid to play NCAA Tournament games every March, just like the men’s have for years, under a plan approved Wednesday at the NCAA convention.
The unanimous vote by NCAA members, which was met with a round of applause, was the final step toward a pay structure for women playing March Madness after the Division I Board of Governors voted to unanimously for the proposal in August.
NCAA President Charlie Baker joined others in recognizing the creation of a performance fund to those who came before him and helped grow women’s basketball.
“We’re the lucky ones,” Baker said. “We need to be here the day this becomes a reality.” »
There is now work to be done to continue investing in women’s basketball to further develop the sport.
“That’s what I hope is that one day someone will say about us that they’re sitting on the shoulders of the work that we’ve done,” Baker said.
South Carolina coach Dawn Staley, whose Gamecocks went undefeated in winning last year’s national championship and their third overall, said her first thought upon hearing the vote was a simple “YES!”
“This continues our fight to elevate women’s basketball to historic levels,” Staley said. “I appreciate the decision by the law firm Kaplan Hecker and Fink to include the lack of units in their report as a key issue preventing women’s basketball from capitalizing on the historic viewership and quality of the product on the ground.”
Performance units, which represent income, will be given to women’s teams participating in the tournament which begins this year, the 43rd edition of the event. A team that reaches the Final Four could earn its conference about $1.26 million over the next three years in financial performance awards.
In the first year, $15 million will be awarded to teams from the fund, representing 26% of women’s basketball media revenue. That amount will reach $25 million, or 41% of revenue, by 2028. That 26% is comparable to what men’s basketball teams received the first year the performance unit program was created.
Teams participating in this March’s NCAA Tournament won’t actually get paid until the organization has a full tournament of data available.
Still, North Carolina coach Courtney Banghart, who is also president of the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association, called the reality of the postseason units a great day and a reward for athletic departments’ investment in the women’s basketball.
“The long-awaited, hard-earned and well-deserved day has arrived,” Banghart said. “I am very grateful for the efforts of so many people to bring this reality to our sport. Women’s basketball is more popular than ever, seats are filled, stadiums are sold out, and games are on national television almost every night.
The proposal was split into two votes Wednesday, the first dealing with payments from the next NCAA tournament. This proposal received a “no”, although the vote in favor of creating the women’s fund itself received a “yes” from the 292 members present.
“It’s great that women’s basketball receives the much-deserved financial reward for its success in the NCAA postseason,” Louisville coach Jeff Walz said.
The women’s March Madness plan is similar to the men’s basketball unit’s schedule. Each of the 32 conferences that receive an automatic bid to the tournament will receive one unit, and additional units will be awarded to teams that receive an at-large bid out of all 68 teams.
The longer a school’s tournament lasts, the more units the school’s conference receives. The conferences decide on the distribution of unit income to each of its members. Each unit was worth approximately $2 million for the 2024 men’s tournament.
Men’s basketball teams now receive 24 percent of the media rights deal, which totals $8.8 billion over eight years, starting this year. Women’s basketball is valued at $65 million per tournament in the NCAA’s new media rights deal with ESPN, about 10 times more than in the contract that ends this year.
Women have a higher percentage of media revenue to reinforce the value of each performance unit.
The NCAA sharing March Madness revenue with its member schools has long been a feature of the men’s tournament. The 2018 tournament, for example, brought in $844.3 million in television and marketing rights, the vast majority coming from a contract with CBS and Turner Sports to televise the games.
Most of the money flows through the NCAA to conferences and then back to member schools, more than 300 of which field Division I basketball teams eligible to compete in the tournament. Schools primarily reinvest in athletics, from scholarships for athletes in all sports to coaches’ salaries to practice facilities, stadiums, baseball fields and arenas.
Vanderbilt coach Shea Ralph won a national title playing at UConn and helped the Huskies win six more championships as an assistant coach. She ended Vanderbilt’s NCAA tournament drought last year and called Wednesday’s vote a testament to “decades” of hard work.
“It’s an exciting time to compete for a spot in the NCAA Tournament,” Ralph said.
Julie Roe Lach, Horizon League commissioner and member of the Division I women’s basketball oversight committee, called the creation of the fund “a big step” not only for women’s basketball but also for women’s sports. in general, towards the goal of gender equity.
As women’s college basketball “grows in popularity,” Lach said they can’t just celebrate this moment.
“Like the men’s basketball fund, the women’s basketball funds are unrestricted, meaning conferences and institutions can choose how to invest these additional dollars,” said Lach, who noted that the Horizon League had policies ready to reward programs for strong schedules, performances and performances. playoff success.
The women’s tournament is coming off its most successful year ever, with a record audience of 18.7 million for South Carolina’s title game against Iowa and Caitlin Clark, the highest for a basketball broadcast of any kind in five years.
It topped the men’s championship game — UConn winning its second straight title with a victory over Purdue — by nearly 3 million viewers. The women’s tournament also saw record attendance.
In another important step, Division I approved a women’s wrestling championship. Divisions II and III will vote on its addition in the coming days. … SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey said any changes to the College Football Playoff would require unanimous approval. The most likely change to be considered immediately would be a change in distribution. The top four seeds in this year’s tournament all received byes and all lost their first matches. … Discussions over new rules that would give athletes five years to complete five years of eligibility continue. DI Board Chairman Josh Whitman, Illinois AD, said, “One of the attractive things, whether it’s a 5 for 5, or whatever it is, is that we can maybe create something simpler, cleaner, simpler. easier to understand.