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Afternoon Edition

March 17, 2025

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Caitlin Clark helped carry women’s March Madness to new heights. But even as she’s moved on to the WNBA, the tournament is in good shape, with new stars taking on the mantle.

— Eric Fisher [[link removed]], Colin Salao [[link removed]], and David Rumsey [[link removed]]

As Women’s Tournament Begins, New Generation of Stars in Focus [[link removed]]

Troy Wayrynen-Imagn Images

No Caitlin Clark, no problem—at least over the long term.

The NCAA women’s basketball tournament begins Wednesday with its First Four games, and while this year’s event will be hard-pressed to match the historic heights of 2024 [[link removed]], the competition will still showcase the sport’s overall rise.

The 2025 edition of March Madness will carry the momentum of a regular season that included ESPN’s highest average viewership since the 2008–2009 season [[link removed]] for women’s basketball, rising 3% from 2024 and 41% from two years ago. Recent conference title games, meanwhile, fell short of last year’s audiences in several respects, but they still similarly showed growth from 2023 [[link removed]], when Clark initially burst onto the national scene with the first of her two Naismith Player of the Year awards.

The Big Ten tournament final in particular between UCLA and USC—the Nos. 1 and 4 teams in the country, respectively—drew the second-largest audience in that event’s history, trailing only a Clark-led Iowa triumph last year over Nebraska.

Star Power

Beyond the broader escalation of women’s sports, and basketball specifically, a key element of this year’s March Madness is an even larger group of top stars [[link removed]]. While Clark and LSU’s Angel Reese dominated much of the mainstream attention of last year’s tournament, this year’s iteration will feature a deep array of top talent that includes UConn’s Paige Bueckers, USC’s JuJu Watkins, UCLA’s Lauren Betts, and Florida State’s Ta’Niya Latson, among others.

South Carolina, last year’s champion and coached by women’s basketball icon Dawn Staley, is also back as a No. 1 seed and seeking to be the first repeat title-winner in the sport since UConn’s 2013–2016 run of four straight. The team, however, lost out on the tournament’s top overall seed to UCLA, in part reflecting the new-look nature [[link removed]] and rising parity in the sport.

The NCAA selection committee, meanwhile, is facing some backlash for a tournament bracket that places the Watkins-led USC and Bueckers-led UConn in the same regional. Arguably the tournament’s two most notable players, as a result, are set for a matchup in the Elite Eight as opposed to later in March Madness—when even higher viewership is likely—and at least one of the two stars will not be in the Final Four.

A prior matchup of the two stars in December drew more than 2.2 million viewers on Fox [[link removed]], the largest audience for women’s college basketball this season. There was “no consideration” of those factors, however, the NCAA said.

“It wasn’t about putting [teams] in the same pod. We put them in the spot they earned,” said NCAA women’s tournament chair Derita Dawkins.

Women’s March Madness Enters Year 1 of Polarizing Rights Deal [[link removed]]

David Butler II-Imagn Images

The 2025 Women’s March Madness tournament is a historic one: It’s the first under the eight-year, $920 million contract extension [[link removed]] between ESPN and the NCAA.

The deal, which was signed in January 2024, was for 40 NCAA championships. The women’s basketball tournament was its centerpiece, valued at $65 million per year, nearly twice as much as the $34 million average payout received in its previous deal.

The extension followed a 2023 tournament that averaged 983,000 viewers on ESPN networks, up 55% from the previous year, including a championship game between Caitlin Clark’s Iowa Hawkeyes and Angel Reese’s LSU Tigers that drew nearly 10 million viewers [[link removed]].

While the deal was a sign of the women’s tournament growth, it still received criticism. There was a belief that women’s March Madness was still undervalued and that it should earn a separate deal from other NCAA championships, similar to the men’s. A gender equity report commissioned by the NCAA in 2021 estimated the women’s tournament could be worth $81 million to $112 million per year [[link removed]] on its own.

That criticism only grew after the 2024 tournament, which took place just months after the media-rights extension was signed and surpassed perhaps even the most optimistic women’s basketball supporters’ expectations.

Women’s March Madness Full Tournament Viewership Average

2024: 2.2 million (+121%) 2023: 983,000 2022: 634,000 2021: 546,000

The 2024 women’s tournament final famously outpaced the men’s championship game [[link removed]], drawing 18.9 million viewers on ABC.

The men’s March Madness tournament will also have its eight-year media-rights extension with CBS and TNT kick in this year—a deal agreed upon way back in 2016—worth an average of $1.1 billion per year, nearly 17 times as much as the women’s annual deal.

However, there were a few reasons for the relatively low price of the women’s deal. When negotiations started in 2022, spending was somewhat constrained, as seen by ESPN’s decision to pass on the Big Ten [[link removed]]. The Pac-12 overestimated its value [[link removed]] that year and lost most of its schools.

NCAA president Charlie Baker also told Front Office Sports that it was important to leverage the women’s tournament as a way to lift the championships of other sports [[link removed]]. “I wanted the best deal for everybody,” Baker said after the deal was announced.

But a key point in the deal was the timing of the end of it: 2032, the same year as the men’s championship. This would allow the NCAA to negotiate the deals simultaneously and potentially amend any inequities between the two tournaments.

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Why Women’s Tournament Delays Neutral Sites—and How Hosting Helps [[link removed]]

Iowa City Press-Citizen

As evidenced by the NCAA’s latest media-rights deal, women’s March Madness is slowly working to make up for inequities with the men’s tournament.

But one major difference between the two remains in the opening rounds. While the men’s tournament annually begins in Dayton for the First Four, and then at eight neutral-site arenas across the country, the women’s event takes its own approach.

For women’s March Madness, first- and second-round games are played on the campuses of the top four seeds in each quadrant of the bracket. First Four matchups are also played at the venue where the winner will ultimately end up.

For example, UC San Diego and Southern University will compete for a No. 16 seed Wednesday at Pauley Pavilion in Los Angeles, where the winner will face No. 1 UCLA on Friday, and where No. 8 Richmond vs. No. 9 Georgia Tech will take place. The 1–16 and 8–9 winners will face off Sunday.

The same process will play out at the other 15 home venues of the Nos. 2, 3, and 4 seeds in each portion of the bracket.

Watch Party

While playing on campuses for the opening rounds gives the women’s tournament a much different feel than the men have at neutral sites, the results at the turnstiles have been positive in recent years.

In 2024, a record 292,456 fans attended first- and second-round games, an increase of more than 60,000 from 2023. Not surprisingly, Iowa City was the most-attended site. Sellout crowds totaled more than 28,000 fans at Carver-Hawkeye Arena, as Caitlin Clark and Iowa beat Holy Cross and West Virginia en route to a second straight Final Four appearance.

STATUS REPORT Two Up, One Down, One Push

Amber Searls-Imagn Images

March Madness newbies ⬆ Six programs are making their debut in the women’s NCAA tournament: Arkansas State, Fairleigh Dickinson, George Mason, Grand Canyon, UC San Diego, and William & Mary.

Ivy League ⬆ A conference record three teams have made the tournament: Ivy League champion Harvard, as well as at-large bids for Columbia and Princeton. The previous high for the conference was two programs in 2024 and 2016.

Stanford ⬇ The Cardinal failed to make the NCAA tournament for the first time since 1987. Stanford went 8–10 in the school’s first ACC season, and it finished 16–14 overall, including an opening-round loss in the ACC tournament.

Sportsbooks ⬆⬇ With a record $3.1 billion projected to be bet on men’s and women’s March Madness, according to the American Gaming Association, there is not a clear-cut betting favorite in the women’s bracket. South Carolina and UConn are both hovering around or just under +300 to win the national championship.

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Conversation Starters Conference realignment is already having a big impact on women’s March Madness. Take a look [[link removed]] at which newcomers are having the most success. When Jack Nicklaus won the first Players Championship in 1974, he earned $50,000. On Monday morning, Rory McIlroy won the 2025 tournament—and earned a PGA Tour regular-season record-tying $4.5 million [[link removed]]. Texans cornerback Derek Stingley Jr. just became the highest-paid defensive back in NFL history. Check out [[link removed]] how much his new contract is worth. Editors’ Picks Rory McIlroy Wins Record-Tying $4.5M at the Players Championship [[link removed]]by David Rumsey [[link removed]]The PGA Tour’s flagship event had another record $25 million purse. Kelly Flagg Expects Son Cooper Back for Duke ‘Very Soon’ [[link removed]]by Alex Schiffer [[link removed]]The Blue Devils open NCAA tournament play on Friday in Raleigh, N.C. Robinhood Adding Prediction Market From Kalshi After Super Bowl About-Face [[link removed]]by Ryan Glasspiegel [[link removed]]Robinhood’s partnership with Kalshi will be wide-ranging. Advertise [[link removed]] Honors [[link removed]] Learning [[link removed]] Events [[link removed]] Video [[link removed]] Shows [[link removed]] Written by Eric Fisher [[link removed]], Colin Salao [[link removed]], David Rumsey [[link removed]] Edited by Or Moyal [[link removed]], Catherine Chen [[link removed]]

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