By Sabreena Merchant, Ben Pickman and Chantel Jennings
The Division I Board of Directors on Tuesday introduced a highly anticipated proposal to include financial units for the women’s NCAA basketball tournament, a practice already existing on the men’s side. The fund, if passed in a final vote in January involving the full Division I membership, would begin during the 2025 women’s NCAA Tournament with payouts starting during the 2025-26 fiscal year.
Conferences are awarded units — a fixed amount of revenue — for each game that their teams play in the tournament. The conference then splits the payout among its member schools and has the authority to divide the amount at its discretion. For a mid-major conference, units can dramatically increase total revenue.
Assuming the vote goes through, units will be dispersed from the aforementioned fund. The fund will begin at $15 million in 2025-26 before increasing to $20 million in 2026-27 and $25 million in 2027-28. After that, the funds would grow at the same rate as all other Division I revenue distribution funds (around 2.9 percent).
The proposal comes in the wake of the media rights deal the NCAA signed with ESPN in January 2024.
The eight-year, $920 million deal included the domestic rights to 40 championships,…
