Tag: Women’s Final Four

Iowa-LSU women’s title game is most-viewed women’s CBB game ever

Most-viewed NCAA women’s hoops game ever. @HawkeyesWire & @LSUTigersWire made history … and progress.

The Iowa-South Carolina women’s Final Four semifinal game this past Friday night was the most-viewed women’s national semifinal game of all time. That was just the beginning.

Two days later, on Sunday afternoon, the Iowa-LSU women’s national championship game pulled in massive ratings, becoming the most-viewed women’s college basketball game on record.

Our friends at Hawkeyes Wire have the details:

“The Iowa Hawkeyes and LSU Tigers each had so much star power and multiple reasons to tune into the Women’s NCAA Tournament title game. The evidence is undeniable that people tuned in and they did so in record-breaking numbers.

“Social media lit up from tipoff and continued to be buzzing until the final buzzer went off. The game had swings in it and so much action that it kept fans tuned in the entire time as Iowa tried to come back, but ultimately fell short to the Tigers.

“The ratings have come in for this game and they are astronomical in what they turned out as. This game set multiple records and had a viewership increase that is almost unheard of. The ratings came in at 9.9 million viewers with a peak viewership of 12.6 million viewers.”

For perspective on this:

The 9.9 million figure matched Game 7 of the NBA Eastern Conference Finals between the Boston Celtics and Miami Heat last year. It outdrew the Sugar, Orange, and Cotton Bowls. That’s heavyweight stuff.

With Iowa and Caitlin Clark becoming TV ratings gold for ESPN and its television and streaming outlets, the sport of women’s basketball seems poised for a bigger television breakthrough, akin to what men’s college basketball experienced in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Such a transformation in the economics of the sport would be crucial for women’s college hoops and for various athletic departments and conferences across the country. Rising interest in women’s college basketball on television would increase the market value of the women’s NCAA Tournament precisely when the NCAA is in a position to negotiate a new standalone deal with ESPN for media rights to the women’s half of March Madness.

USC and other schools in position to thrive over the next several years could make a lot of money in women’s basketball.

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Did women’s college basketball just have its 1979 moment?

.@LSUTigersWire won it all. @HawkeyesWire had an immortal, epic run. Did it change women’s hoops forever? We’ll see.

The Men’s NCAA Tournament and the larger entity of men’s college basketball were not always wildly popular. We did not always have office pools with everyone filling out a bracket on the Monday after the selection show. We did not always have four different television networks covering the first and second rounds of the men’s tournament. We didn’t always have a 64- or 68-team field with expansive national coverage. We didn’t always have 60 or 70 thousand people gathering in a domed football stadium for the Final Four.

In 1972, the Men’s Final Four was played on a Thursday with the championship game being on a Saturday. Attendance for NCAA Tournaments — the full tournament, not just the Final Four — was below 175,000. The size of the NCAA Tournament field was under 30 teams. If you think college basketball is a niche sport now, it was far more of a niche sport back then.

A number of events, however, changed how college basketball was viewed and valued in the economic marketplace. A central driver of increased commercial value — and fan interest — in college basketball was the 1979 national championship game between Magic Johnson of Michigan State and Larry Bird of Indiana State. That game not only propelled college hoops into the spotlight; it also gave the NBA the two superstars who would permanently transform professional basketball.

Three short years after the 1979 Magic-Bird title game, the NCAA moved the Final Four into a big dome, the Louisiana Superdome in 1982. Over 60,000 fans watched that year’s Final Four semifinal games on Saturday. Over 60,000 returned for the Monday night final between Michael Jordan’s North Carolina team and Patrick Ewing’s Georgetown squad.

Six years after Magic-Bird 1979, the NCAA Tournament expanded to 64 teams, which is double what the field was in 1975 (32 teams). The rocket ship of college basketball had taken off. Dollars soared. Fan interest went through the roof. Media rights were in the hundreds of thousands of dollars in the 1960s, and in the single millions of dollars in the early 1970s.

Today, media rights (CBS and Turner) are in the billions for March Madness, an instantly recognizable brand.

With all of this as prelude, did women’s college basketball just have its 1979 Magic-Bird moment? Did Caitlin Clark and Iowa, who lost to LSU on Sunday in the national championship game, transform the economics and television visibility of women’s hoops?

Clark and Iowa were ratings gold for ESPN, setting new records and milestones for women’s basketball TV ratings and overall national interest. The Women’s NCAA Tournament is about to become a standalone media property, which is going to make a lot of money for successful women’s hoops programs and conferences. USC could be one such success story.

Only time will tell, but the 2023 Women’s NCAA Tournament and Women’s Final Four could eventually be remembered as a 1979 moment for women’s basketball in American sports.

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New NCAA president hopes to make Women’s NCAA Tournament a standalone property

Charlie Baker, who took over from Mark Emmert, is clearly excited about the idea of maximizing the TV value of women’s basketball.

You might have noticed that Iowa’s win over South Carolina in the Women’s Final Four on ESPN set numerous television ratings records and represented a milestone moment in the growth of women’s hoops as a commercial product.

Before Iowa played LSU on Sunday afternoon in the women’s national championship game, the new president of the NCAA spoke about the big opportunity which sits in front of the organization as it tries to make more money for its member schools.

Charlie Baker, who recently replaced Mark Emmert as the president of the NCAA, addressed the idea of separating the Women’s NCAA Tournament from other NCAA sports championships as a media property. This move, if executed, could establish a high market value for the event and untether it from other sports.

Creating a standalone Women’s NCAA Tournament would presumably enable the NCAA to establish the win-unit structure the men’s tournament currently uses. This would provide a vehicle for pumping millions of dollars in new revenue into conferences and their schools.

This is something Pac-12 journalist Jon Wilner has covered and written about for years. We have noted his reporting and analysis and have followed this particular story.

Here’s what Charlie Baker had to say over the weekend, before the LSU-Iowa game on Sunday:

“I think the biggest opportunity there — and I would argue that the investments that have been made in the women’s game have had a tremendous return to the women’s game and to the players and the coaches and everybody else — is the fact that the timing on the bid associated with this is perfect,” Baker told reporters at the men’s Final Four in Houston on Saturday. “Basically, this thing is going out this year and it’s going out on the heels of what will have been the most successful tournament. … Let’s see what the market thinks it’s worth. I think the market is going to think it’s worth a lot.”

Pac-12 schools and athletic departments can’t wait to get their hands on a piece of this revenue pie.

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Iowa, Caitlin Clark helped ESPN set record TV ratings in Women’s Final Four

As @HawkeyesWire knows, big women’s hoops TV ratings aren’t just a fun story. They’re a huge deal for athletic departments.

Our friends at Hawkeyes Wire are living the dream. It’s always great when one of our partner College Wire sites gets to be part of a tremendous sports story and a national sports showcase such as the Women’s Final Four. Iowa played LSU for the national championship of women’s college basketball on Sunday afternoon in Dallas.

Leading into that game, Iowa and superstar Caitlin Clark set new television ratings records which will be noticed throughout the college sports industry.

Hawkeyes Wire wrote:

“The Iowa Hawkeyes took down previously undefeated South Carolina and will now face LSU in their shot at the National Championship.

“The game had star power in Caitlin Clark and Aliyah Boston to go with high-stakes, postseason basketball. The game came down to the final minute and the ratings that came in have proven that the sports world was tuned in.

“The Iowa versus South Carolina Final Four game was the catalyst that has made this season’s semifinals the most viewed Women’s NCAA Tournament semifinals in ESPN’s history. It is also the most-viewed semifinal game on record.”

All of this matters because the Women’s NCAA Tournament, which has previously been bundled together with other NCAA sports championships, could soon be de-coupled from those other sports.

Women’s NCAA Tournament revenue with a win-unit structure akin to what the Men’s NCAA Tournament uses could infuse athletic departments with millions of additional dollars. Pac-12 schools wondering about their standing in the larger marketplace would stand to make a lot more money than before, especially if the Pac-12 — a strong women’s basketball conference — can produce Sweet 16, Elite Eight, and Final Four teams on a large scale, something it has done several times in recent years, most notably in 2016 and 2021, when it sent two teams to the Final Four.

Follow Hawkeyes Wire and LSU Tigers Wire for full coverage of the Iowa-LSU women’s national championship game.

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LSU’s Alexis Morris called out Caitlin Clark’s ‘disrespectful’ defense ahead of NCAA title game

Alexis Morris isn’t playing Caitlin Clark’s mind games.

Pretty much the entire basketball world was amazed by the stunning play and swagger of Caitlin Clark as Iowa knocked off previously undefeated South Carolina in the women’s Final Four.

One that wasn’t impressed, however, plays for Iowa’s next opponent, LSU. The Tigers stand in the way of the Hawkeyes and one of the more incredible title runs the sport has ever seen.

More specifically, Tigers guard Alexis Morris doesn’t think Clark can dare LSU to shoot from behind the arc the way she did against the Gamecocks.

“I don’t think they can guard us that way,” Morris said, per Sports Illustrated‘s Wilton Jackson. “I don’t think you can just leave me open on the perimeter or leave us open on the perimeter. Me personally, I find it very disrespectful, so I’m going to take that personally going into that game. You’re going to have to guard us. That’s just the competitor in me, and the will to win.”

Elite athletes will find any reason to put a chip on their shoulder, but feeling disrespected by how your own opponent defended arguably the best team in the tournament seems like a stretch.

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Of course, if LSU wins on Sunday it won’t matter how the team pumped itself up. They just happened to give the Hawkeyes some bulletin board material of their own in the process.

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Women’s Final Four ticket prices over 3X as much as Men’s Final Four

Why mention ticket prices at the #FinalFour and #WFinalFour? Women’s #MarchMadness can grow revenue for the #Pac12

File this next item under “stories you probably didn’t expect to see, but carry considerable significance for the Pac-12 and other stakeholders in college sports.”

Sportico and other outlets noticed that on Tuesday morning (March 28), the get-in ticket prices for the Women’s Final Four in Dallas this Friday considerably eclipsed the get-in prices for the Men’s Final Four in Houston on Saturday.

By how much did Women’s Final Four ticket prices exceed the men at Ticketmaster? Over three times as much.

The Men’s Final Four has rarely been this affordable and accessible for a middle-class consumer. If you’re a Houstonian or a Texan or a Louisiana or Arkansas resident, you could drive to Houston and watch a pair of national semifinals for at or near $100, one of the more improbable but considerable sports bargains for a high-end event.

With Florida Atlantic, San Diego State, and Miami joining blue-blood UConn at the Final Four, the heavyweight presence at the event is minimal. Large national fan bases are in short supply. Moreover, because the event is now regularly held in domes with seating configurations which can accommodate near 70,000 people, those upper-deck seats are going to come very cheaply.

Meanwhile, the Women’s Final Four clearly has the biggest blockbuster game of any of the four national semifinals, men or women, this weekend: Iowa and superstar Caitlin Clark against unbeaten defending national champion South Carolina.

This is why the Women’s Final Four get-in price was over $300 at Ticketmaster on Tuesday morning:

Why does this matter? Why bother to mention it? It’s simple: As we have noted (with help from Jon Wilner of the Wilner Hotline) over the past two years, the Women’s NCAA Tournament is currently bundled with other NCAA sports championships. It is not a standalone media rights property. If it could be un-tethered from those other non-revenue sports, and if a “win unit” structre akin to what exists for the men’s tournament was created, women’s basketball could generate extra millions of dollars for sports programs in the Pac-12 and other conferences.

Sure, the money wouldn’t be nearly as huge as what the men take in, but more millions of dollars is a whole lot better than zero dollars. It’s long past time for the women’s tournament to become a significant revenue vehicle for college sports programs big and small.

George Kliavkoff and Pac-12 presidents and chancellors can certainly use the money.

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What to know before LSU’s Final Four showdown with Virginia Tech

Here’s what you need to know before LSU squares off with the Hokies.

For the first time since 2008, LSU has the opportunity to compete for a national title.

[autotag]Kim Mulkey[/autotag] marched LSU to the Final Four in Year 2. With a transfer-heavy rebuild that featured the additions of [autotag]Angel Reese[/autotag] and [autotag]Alexis Morris[/autotag] among others, LSU has ascended to be one of the nation’s premier teams.

It won’t come as a surprise to those familiar with Mulkey’s work. It happened fast, but this is right where LSU was supposed to be.

The Tigers will face Virginia Tech, a 31-4 No. 1 seed. LSU, a three-seed, is the lowest remaining seed left.

But let’s not waste any more time. Here’s a look at what LSU faces in Dallas and what lies ahead on the road to a title.

Diana Taurasi was a hilarious soundbite during the Women’s Final Four and fans couldn’t get enough

Taurasi was a walking one-liner.

There are few things WNBA great Diana Taurasi hasn’t accomplished.

From being three NCAA titles, three WNBA titles, and five Olympic gold medals, to six Euroleague Championships and almost countless individual accolades, she’s one of the most talented people to ever dribble a basketball.

If you weren’t already familiar with her off the court, as it turns out, the WNBA’s all-time leading scorer also brings a lot to the table as an analyst. How could someone who’s achieved so much not have a keen eye for the game?

During the Women’s Final Four matchups on Friday night — where Taurasi hosted ESPN’s Megacast simultaneously with fellow great Sue Bird — she brought another element to her terrific insight: A dry comedic wit.

The first notable instance occurred during No. 1 overall seed South Carolina’s (8.5-point favorites coming in) matchup with Louisville.

When the Gamecocks began to pull away for good during the third quarter (before eventually winning 72-59 to advance to the National Title Game), Taurasi commented on their amazing, natural athletic ability.

Nothing more.

Why are Bird and their guest Kelsey Plum cracking up and hiding their faces behind Red Solo cups at Taurasi’s completely factual analysis? Basketball isn’t supposed to be funny, you guys. It’s serious business.

“You can’t help it,” said Plum in reaction.

Later, when Connecticut (one-point underdogs before tip-off) squared off against Louisville, Taurasi chimed in with more trademark excellence.

As former Stanford star and current Sparks centerpiece Nneka Ogwumike joined the Taurasi-Bird dynamic duo, Taurasi mused about the incredible dedication today’s young athletes have to basketball when compared to herself.

Hey, we’ve all been there, right? Why run an extra suicide or eat brown rice for dinner when the pizza and Coke is right there? If one of the greatest athletes ever lives her life to the fullest (i.e. lounging on the couch), why can’t we?

Diana Taurasi: Role Model.

Between the jokes, the honesty, and the analysis, fans watching the ESPN Megacast understandably couldn’t get enough of the ever-charismatic Taurasi. Here’s some reaction: