Closing thoughts on this year’s March Madness

We’re a few days removed from UConn winning their 12th women’s college basketball national championship. Now that the confetti has fallen, and the Huskies are busy on their celebration tour — and with the WNBA draft only a few days away — I wanted to share some brief reflections on this year’s Final Four after being onsite in Tampa.

First, however, I’d like to thank Daytime for having me on to talk about Just Women’s Sports and the state of women’s sports. I’d also like to thank Lisa Leslie, Aaliyah Edwards, Kelsey Mitchell and Gabriela Jaquez for being a part of our Sports Are Fun! live taping in Tampa. The show was an absolute blast, and I was so impressed by all these athletes’ energy and insights.

With that said, here’s what I’m thinking about as we close the books on March Madness. 

1. The TV deal conversation is not going away

I laid out all my issues with the NCAA’s new TV deal last week. I won’t rehash them here, but I will note that both UConn coach Geno Auriemma and South Carolina coach Dawn Staley made it a point to criticize the deal over the course of the weekend, specifically calling out the packaging of women’s basketball with 39 other sports. 

Dawn went straight to the point: “We need our own television deal so we can understand what our worth is.”

And Geno echoed the same: “For years and years and years we’ve been packaged with all the other Olympic sports, so to speak, in one big chunk. Can we completely separate ourselves and say: What are we worth to you?” 

As a reminder, the eight-year, $920 million deal with ESPN just started this year. And while there’s so much to celebrate about the growth of women’s March Madness, it should be alarming to everyone watching that the two biggest coaches in the sport are both this outspoken about a TV deal that won’t expire until 2032. 

I’ll talk more about the viewership numbers below. But even with ratings down YoY, this year’s women’s tournament did more than enough to prove it’s already outgrown that deal. 

The men’s Championship game this year peaked at 21.1 million viewers. The women’s, despite being a blowout, peaked at 9.8 million. 

I expect that gap to close, but right now, it is what it is. The men’s Championship drew roughly 2x the viewers. 

But the men’s TV deal? It’s worth 17x the women’s.

The viewership gap will close. But the difference in broadcast revenue won’t. And so long as that’s the case, I expect this TV deal to be a source of growing frustration as the women’s tournament just gets bigger and bigger. 

2. No, I’m not concerned about the “Caitlin Clark dip”

Trivia question: What’s the most-watched men’s college basketball game of all-time? 

Answer: The 1979 Final between Magic Johnson and Larry Bird, which drew 35 million viewers. 

That record has stood for 46 years, and yet I don’t hear anyone bemoaning the Magic-Bird “dip.” Nor does anyone seem that concerned that the next six most-watched games in men’s college basketball all happened before 1995. 

While I’m confident we’ll break last year’s records at some point, everyone knew there’d be a fall off this year. The Caitlin Clark dip was inevitable. But while viewership for the Final was down 55% YoY, this year’s tournament was still a big step in the right direction. 

The Round of 32, Sweet Sixteen, and Elite Eight were all the second-most watched on record. And viewership for the Final was up 76% compared to 2022 — when South Carolina and UConn last played in the game. That 2022 Championship featured many of the same names from this year’s clash: Geno, Dawn, Paige Bueckers, Azzi Fudd, Bree Hall and Sania Feagin. 

The fact we saw the same two teams draw this many more fans speaks to how much the floor has risen when it comes to women’s hoops. 

Last year was about breaking through. This year was about setting a new status quo. And a status quo in which the women’s Championship can draw nearly 10 million viewers (despite being a blow out) is one I’m happy to work from. 

3. Storylines are more important than scores

None of this year’s Final Four games were especially close. Normally, this lack of crunch time basketball would be a detriment when it comes to attracting the casual fan. And yet, this year’s viewership was massive, and fan engagement was strong. (Just Women’s Sports itself tallied 56 million social impressions throughout Final Four weekend.)

This surge in interest wasn’t driven by close, dramatic games. Instead, it was the storylines that drew fans in. 

Even just looking at the teams: It was UCLA’s first Final Four. Texas was looking to prove they could beat South Carolina again after knocking them off once in the regular season. South Carolina was looking for its third title in four years. And UConn was looking to end a nine-year Championship drought. 

And then there were the players. Texas’ Madison Booker, UCLA’s Lauren Betts, and of course, Paige Bueckers and Azzi Fudd, whose shared time at UConn, until this weekend, had been defined by injuries and missed opportunities. 

In the wake of UConn winning, everyone is talking about Bueckers’ “fairytale” ending in her last college game. We’re four days removed from the men’s basketball championship, and it’s still Paige and Azzi I see dominating the news.

Even though UConn’s win over South Carolina wasn’t close on the court, it was still narratively compelling because we got to see Paige and her teammates complete their redemption arc. 

To me, this speaks to a larger, often unacknowledged trend in modern sports. While front offices have been revolutionized by advanced analytics, sports fandom has never been more personality-driven.

People want stars whose stories they’re invested in. And women’s college basketball is giving them those stars. 

It’s why I think the women’s tournament will continue to make gains on the men’s. Because what made Paige and Azzi’s stories so compelling was the fact they took place over multiple years, whereas in men’s basketball, the best players are almost all one-and-done.

There will never be a story like Paige Bueckers in men’s hoops: No. 1 recruit, National Player of the Year her freshman year, falling short of the Championship, then missing a year with injury, only to finally win it all a week before she’ll be the No. 1 pick in the WNBA draft. 

You can’t create stories with this much depth and that many plot twists when your best players are on campus for less than a year. 

It’s both why I think women’s basketball will continue to grow, and also why I think social media is so important. 

Because that’s where these stories are unfolding for fans. 

It’s on social media that they’re keeping up with Paige Bueckers day in and day out, through the ups and the downs, from her offseason adventures to drinking Diet Coke on the Championship floor.

4. What surprised me most about being onsite?

How much the transfer portal dominated conversations.

Everywhere you went, it was top of everyone’s mind: who was going where, who was talking to who, who might make a surprise declaration for the draft.

It felt like being at Super Bowl week, where only half the conversations are about the upcoming game, and the other half are about NFL free agency and the coaching carousel. 

Regardless of how people feel about the transfer portal, it’s clear it’s here to stay. I expect there to be tweaks (like shifting the transfer window, which currently opens in the middle of the NCAA tournament). But it’s clear to me that we’re heading towards a world in which college sports, like their professional counterparts, have a “free agency” season. 

The big picture impact of this remains to be seen. But one major positive is that it will extend the sport’s relevance past Championship weekend – as seen in all the coverage around Olivia Miles transferring to TCU, and South Carolina landing Ta’Niya Latson.

These players, like Bueckers and Fudd, are writing their own multi-chapter stories.

That’s it for this week. Thank you for subscribing to The Playbook. If you enjoyed this newsletter, forward it to a friend. 

Until next time, 

Haley Rosen