Somebody figured out women's basketball can make money. Is that the beginning of the end?

Uh-oh, they’ve discovered there’s money to be made in women’s basketball. There will be no stopping them now.

Women can shoot a basketball, block shots, set screens, run sophisticated offenses, play their hearts out until the last, four-inch-nail-biting second? Wait, that sounds — marketable.

Well, they’re telling us now, with the televised-sports machine going from “paying no attention at all” to “massive overhype” in about 3.2 seconds. Five years ago, ESPN could scarcely be troubled  to broadcast a women’s game, and when it did it was during dead-air time, like opposite the Super Bowl, when people were guaranteed not to watch.

But after ESPN signed a $920 million, eight-year agreement to televise the women’s tournament, it became the greatest sport in the history of earth faster than you can say “Whoa Nellie.”

Let the hyperventilating begin. The women’s tournament game is the highest-rated of any basketball game in ESPN history, men’s or women’s! Tickets to the women’s final are selling for twice as much as the men’s! This is because ESPN doesn’t broadcast the men’s tournament, CBS/TNT does! And because the men’s venue is three times the size of the women’s! But never mind! We’re on a roll!

Relax guys, the women’s game is exciting enough; you don’t have to pump it up in your condescending “Look at what the little ladies can do” fashion.

Really, I’m old and white and male so my sport is baseball, and while baseball may be more interesting, you can’t argue with a straight face that it’s more exciting. Women are screaming up and down the court, diving after loose balls, crowds are going wild, announcers are screaming “logo shot” whether the shooter is anywhere near the logo or not, coaches are going out of their minds, and fans are on the edges of their seats.

Then you switch over to the Giants-Padres game, and it’s like:

“...Outside, count goes to 1-2. …”

The only outfit that seems to have missed the NCAA women’s basketball bandwagon is the NCAA itself, which, for corporate philosophy and execution, seems to pattern itself after the Boeing Corporation.

For five games it couldn’t even get the three-point line the right distance from the net.

Then it looked for all the world as if its referees had been pre-programmed to assure that the sport’s biggest superstar would make the finals, because you know, people can’t be trusted to watch if the championship only has the two best teams.

Before it realized people would watch women’s basketball and the associated “ka-ching” began to register in its ears, the NCAA prohibited the women from even calling it "March Madness.” That was a man’s brand.

The low point might have come in 2021, when a woman’s tournament venue in Texas featured a “weight room” that consisted of a set of dumbbells and a plastic folding table.

In fact, no one seems more surprised by the newfound popularity of women’s college basketball  than the NCAA itself, whose startled reaction has been akin to the phone ringing at a Public Radio call center during pledge week.

Maybe worst of all, the Iowa-UConn semi-final game was set up for the greatest, most-exciting, most-watched finish ever, when with four seconds left and UConn with the ball down by two, the referees said, “OK, you ladies can all go home now, we’ll take it from here.”

Ah well, we can only hope to enjoy women’s basketball before the money totally ruins it. While the women still play their championship during the day when people can watch, instead of like the men’s, where advertisers demand it start past many people’s bedtimes. Before women play one year for their school before going pro or transferring. While thousands of little girls pick up a basketball instead of staring at their phones, thanks to Caitlin Clark.

That will truly be the mark of a champion; if women’s basketball can survive the NCAA and ESPN, it can survive anything.

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Tim Rowland is a Herald-Mail columnist.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Mail: ESPN has discovered people watch women's basketball.