NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Women’s basketball teams will be paid for playing games in the NCAA tournament each March, just like the men have for years, under a plan approved Wednesday at the NCAA convention.
The unanimous vote by NCAA membership, which was met by a round of applause, was the final step toward a pay structure for women’s teams playing in March Madness after the Division I Board of Governors voted unanimously for the proposal in August.
NCAA president Charlie Baker joined others in giving credit for the creation of a performance fund to those who came before and helped build women’s basketball.
“We’re the lucky ones,” Baker said. “We got to be here on the day it became a reality.”
Now comes more work to continue investing in women’s basketball to grow the sport even more.
“That’s the part I hope, that someday down the road, we all will have someone say about us that they sit on the shoulders of the work that we did,” Baker said.
So-called performance units, which represent revenue, will be given to women’s teams playing in the tournament starting this year, the event’s 43rd edition. A women’s basketball team that reaches the Final Four could bring its conference roughly $1.26 million over the next three years in financial performance…
