Neither Caitlin Clark nor Angel Reese will take the court this weekend, but that doesn’t mean that women’s college basketball is taking a step back. Far from it, actually.
The women’s NCAA Tournament will feature some of the biggest stars in all of college athletics. It will draw eyeballs and fill seats, just as it did in record-breaking fashion throughout the regular season. There are at least six teams that appear capable of winning it all, showcasing the kind of quality depth at the top of the sport that we’ve never seen before. Teams that advance through the bracket will now earn payouts from the NCAA proportionate to their success on the court.
Those who have worked tirelessly over the years to elevate and support women’s basketball say that it’s rewarding to see the sport in this stage. It has shattered ceilings — last year was the first time ever that the women’s title game drew more viewers than the men’s — and it has looked for ways to build off that. We’ve seen the WNBA add expansion teams. Major brands are clamoring to partner with the sport’s most iconic names.
“The state of women’s basketball has never been better,” said Big East commissioner Val Ackerman, who launched the WNBA in 1997 and served as its first president. “Looking back over the last 30 years, there have been spikes around great teams, great stars, Olympic gold medals, etc. But the combination of what’s happened in the last few years in women’s college basketball, what’s happening in the WNBA, the continued success of the national team, and the general growing interest in women’s sports have combined to put women’s basketball in a terrific place.
“The sport is on the move. I’m seeing newfound respect for the game itself. The (women’s) game has its own identity.”
It always did, Ackerman said. But now it’s obvious to all sports consumers, both because of the myriad elite college programs that each have their own clear identities and the diverse skillsets (and distinct personalities) of star players themselves.
Women’s college basketball benefits from the WNBA draft eligibility rules, which requires players to be at least 22 years old or within three months of graduating college to be eligible. This stands in stark contrast to the NBA, which can draft players after just one year in college. While the transfer portal impacts both sports, there is still much more continuity in the women’s game. We’ve all watched Paige Bueckers go through the ups and downs of her career at UConn, making her synonymous with the school. While becoming the NCAA’s all-time leading scorer, Clark carried Iowa to two national championship games. We all got to see them grow and develop over multiple years at the same place; there’s an attachment there that doesn’t exist in the same way with one-and-done stars on the men’s side.
It’s also why there were superstars waiting in the wings after Clark and Reese (among others) headed off to the WNBA. Top power conference programs have had increased visibility — more women’s college games have aired on ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC in recent years — which has introduced new fans to their players, their styles of play and more.
And those fans have stuck around, evidenced by this fairly stunning statistic, courtesy of ESPN: The 2024–25 NCAA women’s basketball regular season averaged 280,000 viewers across 87 games on ESPN networks (ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, and ESPNU), which was a three percent increase in viewership from last year, and the highest on ESPN networks since the 2008–2009 season. And we’re talking about the season after Clark’s record-breaking pursuits.
“People will say to me, ‘Jeez, you lost some of your some of your brightest stars and your biggest lights,’ Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese and folks like that,” NCAA president Charlie Baker said this week. “But just during the course of this year, I’ve seen JuJu Watkins play. I’ve seen Paige Bueckers play. I’ve seen Hannah Hidalgo play. I’ve seen Lauren Betts play. I’ve seen Madison Booker play. There are a ton of really spectacular teams and stars who stepped right up and stepped right in to fill the supposed gap that was created by some of the folks who graduated and moved on.
“The beauty of this whole thing is you now have an extraordinary number of teams who can all lay claim to having a path to the championship. … This whole thing is definitely in a much different place than it was five or 10 years ago.”
It’s got a bit of an if-they-build-it-they-will-come feel to it. So much of the elevation of women’s college basketball stems from an increased investment on the campus level, both in hiring and retaining great coaches as well as improving facilities. But the sport also needed the exposure — with executives at media companies deciding to put marquee games on over-the-air channels and then hiring talent to provide coverage before, during and after the contests.
There is no guarantee that there will be smooth sailing ahead, though. The after-effects of the House settlement will be felt across all of college sports, as power-conference athletic departments re-evaluate their income streams and spending while sharing revenue with their athletes directly. How much will go to women’s basketball players? And what about low- and mid-major programs that can’t afford to pay players much, if at all? Only time will provide those answers.
But all this sport can do in the meantime is deliver yet another fabulous tournament. Maybe some early-round upsets and an instant classic or two in the Final Four? Please and thank you.
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