The NCAA on Thursday announced a new eight-year, $920 million media rights agreement with ESPN, a contract that will keep 40 championships bundled together through 2032. The women’s basketball tournament remained part of that television bundle; it was not spun off for a separate media rights package like the men’s tournament agreement.
Here’s what you need to know about the new NCAA media deal and what it means for women’s college basketball and other NCAA sports:
What is the biggest takeaway from this new agreement?
That women’s basketball was packaged with other sports and not sold on its own like the men’s tournament, which generates nearly $900 million per year in revenue through the NCAA’s deal with Paramount Global and Warner Bros. Discovery to televise the men’s tournament on CBS and the Turner cable networks.
As women’s basketball has broken viewing and attendance records in recent seasons and continues to grow, coaches widely argued that their championship — like men’s basketball and football — should stand on its own. Instead, it was grouped with 39 other championships, including the highly popular women’s volleyball championships, and the softball and baseball College World Series events.
The coaches, nearly unanimously, had expressed fear that…
