The women’s Final Four doesn’t tip off until Friday night. But it’s already the most successful by every measurable metric, from skyrocketing ticket prices to multiple ratings records.

Just look at Monday night’s Elite Eight game between Iowa and LSU, a rematch of the 2023 championship, which averaged a whopping 12.3 million viewers on ESPN platforms. It was the most-watched women’s college basketball game in recorded history; the most-watched college hoops matchup ESPN has ever broadcast, men’s or women’s; and the most-watched women’s game at any level in nearly 30 years. 

Friday night’s doubleheader will feature perhaps the most highly anticipated women’s slate in history. Underdog NC State will face off against undefeated South Carolina at 7:30 p.m. ET. Then, blueblood UConn and Paige Bueckers will take on the indescribable Caitlin Clark (above) and Iowa. Experts are predicting that the women’s Final Four will shatter last year’s impressive records, and that the championship game could rival—or perhaps even surpass—the ratings for the men’s tournament. March Madness ticket prices are already higher in Cleveland than they are in Phoenix.

What makes all that glitz even more impressive: The women’s tournament has been this successful despite decades of being held back by structural inequities, some of which still continue to this day. In 2021 the NCAA came under fire for its second-class treatment of the women’s tournament. The governing body overhauled the event between then and now: finally adding March Madness branding and inking a $920 million media contract with ESPN (valuing the women’s tournament at $65 million per year), among other changes. 

Or so we thought. 

The success of this women’s tournament has taken place against the backdrop of more easily avoidable, embarrassing, and even dangerous logistical issues. The NCAA allowed the entire Sweet 16 to be played in Portland with an inaccurate three-point line, committed multiple referee snafus, and put the Utah women’s basketball team in a hotel in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, where the players experienced multiple racial attacks as a result. No matter how many changes the NCAA makes, it still can’t seem to get the women’s tournament right.

Meanwhile, some of the structural issues remain. The corporate partner program still values the men’s tournament over the women’s. And the women’s tournament still doesn’t have a “units” prize money system (although that could be coming). 

And yet, women’s college basketball continues to thrive.

The signs are everywhere that women’s March Madness has soared to a whole new level of prominence, with ratings among the key indicators.

But the ticket resale market for the upcoming Final Four and championship game provides another crucial window into the leap the sport has taken this season.

The average resale listing price for the upcoming semifinals in Cleveland is $1,556, according to ticket aggregator TicketIQ, with an average get-in price of $479. In particular, that low-end figure has soared by more than 50% in the last four days after Iowa and Caitlin Clark—college basketball’s all-time scoring leader and currently the biggest star in the sport—defeated LSU in the regional finals to punch their Final Four ticket.

But the average semifinals price is also more than twice the comparable figure for last year’s women’s Final Four in Dallas, widely seen as a more attractive tourist destination, showing once more how far, at least in some respects, women’s college basketball has come in the last 12 months. 

A comparison with the men’s Final Four provides another window into the emerging market trends. The average semifinals listing price for the men’s event is $1,422, with a get-in price of $456. Of course, the men’s event is being played in a domed football stadium, as is custom, with Arizona’s State Farm Stadium the site for this year that seats more than 70,000 for basketball. The women’s event, meanwhile, is happening at Cleveland’s Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse, with a capacity of 19,432, in keeping with that event’s typical placement in NBA-sized arenas.

Even with that marked difference in available supply influencing pricing, the ticket market for the women’s Final Four has become a national story in its own right across mainstream media—fueled significantly by the hefty star power supplied by Clark, UConn’s Paige Bueckers (above), and others. Five years ago, having any sort of comparability in ticket resale pricing for the men’s and women’s events, even with the difference in seating capacities, would have been unimaginable. Now, pricing for both the men’s and women’s events are at the highest levels that TicketIQ has tracked.

“Clark is leading the way as a demand driver as Iowa competes for its first-ever women’s national championship,” TicketIQ said. “Add to that South Carolina’s pursuit of a perfect season and the rabid fan bases of UConn and NC State, and here we are.”

Depending on how the cards fall in Friday night’s women’s Final Four games in Cleveland, viewers very well could be served up an all-time classic final of a national championship Sunday: Caitlin Clark, in her final collegiate game, against undefeated South Carolina, with multiple presentations on ABC, ESPN, and ESPN+. So, why, then—given the extraordinary audience numbers already delivered in the Elite Eight—is that game slated to air at 3 p.m. ET? 

Conventional wisdom suggests that such a hyped event would be worthy of a prime-time audience, at least somewhere across Disney’s numerous platforms. When reached for comment, an ESPN spokesperson would only note that the women’s college basketball games “have seen success both in the afternoon and evening.” A fair point: Last year’s title game at the same time slot drew a then record 9.9 million viewers. But couldn’t that be even higher later in the day or evening?

While a source with knowledge of Disney’s programming structure suggests to Front Office Sports that nothing is off the table as plans are made for next year, they point out that ESPN doesn’t have carte blanche access to prime-time windows on ABC. That real estate is controlled by another division of the company. A Disney spokesperson declined to comment on any future plans.

Channel Surfing

After Sunday’s championship game finishes, ABC’s schedule lineup includes local programming, news, America’s Funniest Home Videos, American Idol, and What Would You Do? ESPN will carry a postgame studio show before transitioning to long-running MLB programming in Baseball Tonight and Sunday Night Baseball, followed by the NHL.

Come next week, all eyes will be on the final viewership numbers for the Final Four and championship game, as this is the first year that the audience figures for the women’s tournament could be higher than the men’s tournament, which will conclude on TBS.