Meanwhile, ESPN buys rights to women's basketball tournament for $65 million

[CL82]

NCAA, ESPN Ink 8-Year, $920M Deal For 40 Championships

In signing a new broadcast deal, the NCAA appears to have rectified one of its biggest structural gender inequities.

frontofficesports.com

The deal, which will begin on Sept. 1, will pay out an average of $115 million per year, with women’s March Madness valued at $65 million of that number, NCAA President Charlie Baker tells Front Office Sports. The contract will end in 2032 to correspond with the end of the men’s tournament deal with CBS and Warner Bros.

While not as high as the NCAA study predicted, $65 million a year does provide an opportunity to give female athletes equivalent perks and benefits that their male counterparts get and, potentially, creates a pool of money that can be distributed amongst participating teams in the tournament.

 

[visitingcock]

Roughly 175,000 for every D-1 team before any NCAA skim.

 

[Rowdy831]

The Women's game has momentum and the Men's game is losing some interest. I think this is a great move for ESPN getting a great product at off peak pricing.

 

[CL82]

and the Men's game is losing some interest.

 

[Blakeon18]

Women's hoops calls NCAA-ESPN deal a 1st step

Members of the women's basketball community say the new eight-year NCAA deal with ESPN that will pour an estimated $65 million annually into the sport reflects the growth of the game.

www.espn.com

The link is to a lengthy article on this ESPN deal....some quotes from Himself...positive ones.

 

[oldude]

Certainly, this deal is better than the current one. It’s yet to be worked out exactly how the money will be allocated, but teams that advance farther in the tournament will get more money. This should benefit UConn.

It is likely that the NCAA left some money on the table for WBB, but the goal for the NCAA was to include as many sports in the package as possible. So WBB which probably would have been worth more as a stand alone sport, like FB or MBB, was combined with 39 other sports to spread ESPN $$$ across pretty much all college sports.