NCAA Targets Units for Women’s Basketball Tournament in 2024-25
One of the largest equity gaps between men’s and women’s college basketball could be closed in 2025. NCAA president Charlie Baker told The Next that unit distribution payments could be coming to the NCAA women’s college basketball tournament in the 2024-25 season.
“Our goal is to get it up for the next fiscal year, which would be 2024-25,” Baker told Howard Megdal of The Next.
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Units are payments that are dished out to the 32 NCAA Division I conferences for games played in the NCAA Tournament. On the men’s side, teams are competing for around $220 million, according to Sportico. As it stands now on the women’s side, teams in the tournament are competing for $0.
When the NCAA announced the ESPN extension in January, it said that “with the significant increase in value of the new agreement, NCAA members will explore revenue distribution units for the women’s basketball tournament.” It added that the Division I board’s finance committee had already been discussing possible revenue distribution models.
An NCAA spokesperson told Sportico that Baker’s statements were his expression of confidence that the matter would be approved in a vote by the NCAA Division I membership, rather than a definitive declaration that women’s basketball units are coming.
That vote would occur during the NCAA’s convention in January 2025, and there are still details that need to be figured out before then.
Various committees need to discuss the matter before the Division I members vote on it during the convention, according to ESPN. But the NCAA’s willingness to heed the recommendations of various coaches now seems stronger than ever.
That is largely possible because of the extended media rights deal between ESPN and NCAA which begins in September. The new contract averages around $115 million per year.
South Carolina head coach Dawn Staley, whose team won the 2024 NCAA title over Iowa 87-75 on Sunday, has long said women’s college basketball has been undervalued. On the topic of unit payments, Iowa head coach Lisa Bluder said reporters, “Why wait?”
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