🙋🏻‍♀️ One Shining Moment for Women's College Basketball

March is college basketball season, but now is the women’s time

March just feels different than February, doesn’t it? The first signs of spring start to show, the sun goes down a bit later, it mentally feels like the dog days of winter are behind you, and of course there’s an entire month of the most drama-filled sports tournament the world has ever seen. No, not the BNP Paribas Open (🎾), silly. It’s March Madness (🏀). Let’s pump the breaks a little bit, it’s not quite time to fill out your bracket, but it might be time to start having the conversation if this year’s NCAA Women’s Basketball tournament will be more entertaining than their men counterparts. But, what makes the women’s game more entertaining? How has their popularity grown throughout the years? What have businesses, brands, and media companies done to keep up with this growth? Let’s get into it…

What’s the history of women’s basketball?

• It all started back in 1892 at Smith College in Massachussetts…(jk we’re not going back that far, that would be ridiculous)…we’ll start a little later than that…

• In 1932, FIBA, the International Basketball Federation, was formed but women were not allowed to play for their countries until 1953, where the USA won the first ever FIBA Women’s gold medal (how about those stars and stripes?!).

• Nearly 20 years later, in 1972, Title IX was signed into law.

  • Fresh AF Fact: Title IX is a very famous form of legislation that prohibits sex-based discrimination in education programs and activities that receive federal financial assistance (i.e. it requires schools & universities to provide equal opportunity based on sex. For college athletics, that means men and women have equal opportunity to both participate in sports and receive athletic scholarships.)

• 10 years later, in 1982, women’s basketball was finally governed by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). Prior to that, they were governed by the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW), because the NCAA opposed of Title IX 😬 — Louisiana Tech won the first NCAA Women’s National Championship (ok, we see you, Lady Techsters!).

• More than 15 years later, in 1996, the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) was founded to promote the professional play for women all around the US.

  • Pretty insane how slow moving we were to promote women’s basketball and more broadly women’s sports, right?

So what’s the turning point now, in 2024?

• Short answer: it’s the perfect mix of great players breaking records, more parity and depth of high level teams, networks prioritizing more games, and with the implementation of NIL, players are able to grow the game in a variety of ways with social media, branding, etc.

• But let’s start with the Caitlin Clark Effect (which if you haven’t seen her play, it’s must-watch TV):

  • The Iowa Hawkeyes and Clark were finalists for the 2023 national championship, losing to LSU. That game drew an average of nearly 10 million viewers, which was a 103% increase from the 2022 women’s championship game.

  • The Iowa women’s basketball team brought in over $3.8 million in total revenue in 2022-23, more than doubling what it had raised in any prior recent year.

    • They also nearly doubled their ticket sales, from $770K in 2021-22 to ~$1.4M in 2022-23.

  • On February 15, Clark became the leading career scorer for NCAA women when she passed Kelsey Plum's 3,527 career points, set in 2017…

  • …Two weeks later, she became NCAA Division I basketball’s overall top scorer by breaking Pete Maravich’s nearly 55-year record of 3,667 career points 🤯 (what a boss move, not just a girl boss move…but a legit boss move!)

  • 17 of 19 Iowa women’s basketball’s all-time sellout crowds have occurred during the past three seasons — the other two were in the 1980’s.

  • On average, schools that have hosted Iowa have seen attendance increase over 150% compared with their other home games, the AP reported.

  • According to Vivid Seats data, the top five most in-demand NCAA women’s games this year include Iowa.

    • The average price of tickets for the Hawkeyes since Clark joined the team in 2020 is up ~225%, and the average distance traveled by a fan to watch Iowa play is up ~35% from last season.

  • Iowa has played games on NBC, Fox, and ESPN. Their overtime loss at Ohio State on NBC averaged ~1.9 million viewers across the network and Peacock. It was the most watched regular-season women’s basketball game on any network since 2010.

  • Fox also introduced the Caitlin Clark Cam, which drew around 800,000 viewers on TikTok.

What are businesses and networks doing to engage with the growing sport? 

• Just after the new year, ESPN and the NCAA announced an 8-year, $920M agreement to give ESPN exclusive rights to 40 college sports championships, including the DI women's basketball tournament. The deal is worth over $115M annually — women’s basketball, alone, is valued at $65M annually.

  • To give you an idea, women’s basketball, in its current deal with ESPN, is worth ~$34M annually.

  • Not to compare and contrast but…Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery pay ~$900M per year for the DI men’s basketball tournament 😳.

• Businesses and brands are also noticing the growth of the sport, which is why they’re attaching themselves to some of the best players in the game via NIL (see Table 1).

  • Caitlin Clark: Nike, Gatorade, State Farm, Buick, H&R Block

  • Angel Reese: Raising Cane's, Intuit TurboTax, JanSport, Bose

  • Flau'jae Johnson: Amazon, Papa John's, Doritos, Powerade

  • Paige Bueckers: Nike, Gatorade, Crocs, StockX

Where can women’s basketball go from here?

• No “one-and-done” players = big W. To be eligible for the WNBA draft, players have to either complete their four-year degree or be four years removed from graduating high school — unlike men’s basketball players, who can opt to go pro after 1 year of college. Why is this a big win for the sport? Because less turnover = more time to watch each player grow and compete while playing for one program. Which ultimately helps with the recognition of the players and team.

• NIL will make players reconsider their options. As sports leagues go, the WNBA is still in its teenage years. Which means they’ve been experiencing growing pains to gain traction and popularity, especially when comparing them to the more established men’s leagues. Because of this, sponsorship money, ticket sales, and media rights deals are not going to be paid out to teams at a premium. And when these teams aren’t receiving top dollar, less money trickles down to the players and staff resulting in lower compensation. It’s why an annual rookie contract in the WNBA is ~$75K. We’re going to see players opt to stay longer in school to collect more NIL sponsorship money, rather than go pro right when they’re allowed. Especially if their NIL deals are not negotiated to follow them post-graduation. Another year in school, means more time to cheer on that player at their program!

• Clark Effect moving to the WNBA. Last Thursday, Clark announced she is declaring for the WNBA draft, more than likely making her the #1 pick for the Indiana Fever. It’s an interesting move, especially since she technically has one more year of eligibility. But with her fame, on-court success, and career breaking season she will make the jump to the WNBA and continue to grow her legendary status and brand in the pros. This is a crucial time for the WNBA as they recently closed a league-wide $75 million funding round that included capital from Laurene Powell Jobs, Condoleezza Rice, Ted Leonsis, Joe and Clara Tsai, and Nike, which values the league and its teams at $1 billion. Now it’s up to the WNBA to harness the Caitlin Clark Effect and make it a point of interest to grow the game more.

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Quick Hitters

• 🙈 A new Utah bill is set to be on the governor’s desk ready for signature right at sunrise. This bill would introduce the country’s strictest NIL rules, requiring college athletes for all schools in Utah to get written approval from their school for any partnership worth more than $600. NCAA rules, before being wiped away in February, required athletes to report deals of that size to their schools. The Utah bill would reinstate the rule and also require schools to verify that a deal passes both their own standards and those of the bill, which bans promoting alcohol, marijuana, tobacco products, vaping, gambling or betting, and some firearms (some?!). For example, students at Brigham Young University (shoutout to the Mormons) already have to follow similar NIL rules. Since NIL first became legal, the university had rules in place ensuring all deals fit into the school’s honor code (i.e. modest dress with no sleeveless or revealing clothes as well as no coffee, tea, alcohol, and tobacco products).

• 🥽 This Saturday, ESPN commentators will all be wearing Meta Quest Pro headsets during the telecast of the NHL’s Big City Greens Classic. This will be a fully animated live broadcast of the Pittsburgh Penguins-Boston Bruins game set inside the world of the Disney Channel. Remember the SpongeBob Super Bowl? Think that. But instead of the commentators watching animations on screens, they will be fully immersed in this animated world using VR headsets.

• 🤼‍♂️ WWE founder, Vince McMahon, is selling more than $400 million of TKO Group shares, less than six months after he sold the wrestling company to Endeavor Group Holdings (this merged WWE with UFC into a new public company). McMahon, who has a net worth of about $2.7 billion, according to Forbes, will still own more than 15 million shares of TKO, worth ~$1.2 billion. He also previously sold ~$700 million worth of TKO shares in November. Even though we don’t know exactly why he’s doing this, all signs point to him putting together a very pricey legal team.

• 🧔🏻‍♂️ Philadelphia Eagles legend (and, yes, brother to Travis Kelce who, we know, is dating T-Swift), Jason Kelce, officially retired from the NFL after 13 seasons. His career earnings total more than $81M, according to Spotrac. He will undoubtedly be enshrined into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, once he’s eligible in 2029. Until then, we will wait to see what’s next for the multi-talented former-Center. All we know, he’s too entertaining to say goodbye to him forever. He currently hosts a top sports podcast, New Heights, and was the subject of a 2023 Prime Video documentary, Kelce, that chronicled his decision to return for the 2022-23 season and Philadelphia’s run to the Super Bowl. Expect him to get the pick of the litter of any broadcasting gig he wants.