The 2024-25 season is officially in the rearview, and the WNBA season is fast approaching. At The Athletic, we’ll continue to cover women’s college hoops through the offseason as so many storylines continue to emerge and change the landscape of the sport. How will the portal impact teams and conferences? How will financial changes develop in the sport? What hiring trends might we see?
Here are seven big questions we’ll be tracking over the next few months while we eagerly await the 2025-26 tip-off:
1. What does Year 1 of revenue sharing and units look like?
As revenue sharing and the 2025 NCAA Tournament units (financial payouts awarded to conferences based on their teams’ performances in the tournament) hit women’s college basketball, there will be an influx of money to programs and players, which we haven’t seen before. In theory, this could go one of two ways: It will either produce a more equal playing field as programs that haven’t historically had success invest $1 million-plus into their women’s basketball players (attracting talent), or it will widen the gap between the sport’s haves and have-nots.
Many coaches I’ve spoken to fear it’s the latter, but we won’t truly know how this plays out for a few years. But Year 1 should lay the groundwork for…
