01/15/25 02:57:00
Printable Page
01/15 14:55 CST March Madness will pay women's teams under a new structure
approved by the NCAA
March Madness will pay women's teams under a new structure approved by the NCAA
By TERESA M. WALKER
AP Sports Writer
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) --- Women's basketball teams finally will be paid for
playing games in the NCAA Tournament each March just like the men have for
years under a plan approved Wednesday at the NCAA convention.
The unanimous vote by NCAA membership was the final step toward a pay structure
for women playing in March Madness after the Division I Board of Governors
voted unanimously for the proposal in August.
Now, so-called performance units, which represent revenue, will be given to
women's teams playing in the tournament. A women's basketball team that reaches
the Final Four could bring its conference roughly $1.26 million over the next
three years in financial performance rewards.
In the first year, $15 million will be awarded to teams out of the fund, which
is 26% of the women's basketball media revenue deal. That will grow to $25
million, or 41% of the revenue, by 2028. The 26% is on par with what men's
basketball teams received the first year the performance units program was
established.
This will start in March in the 43rd year of the women's NCAA Tournament. The
lack of a units system for the women's tournament has been a point of sharp
criticism.
"It's great women's basketball is getting the long-deserved financial reward
for NCAA postseason success," Louisville coach Jeff Walz said.
The women's March Madness plan is similar to the men's basketball unit program.
Each of 32 conferences that receive an automatic bid to the tournament will
receive a unit, and additional units will be rewarded for teams that receive
at-large bids to the 68-team field.
The longer a school's tournament run lasts, the more units the school's
conference receives. Conferences decide the distribution of unit revenue to
each of its members. Each unit was worth about $2 million for the 2024 men's
tournament.
Men's basketball teams now receive 24% of the media rights deal, which is $8.8
billion over eight years, starting this year. Women's basketball is valued at
$65 million per tournament in the NCAA's new media rights deal with ESPN ---
roughly 10 times more than in the contract that ends this year.
The women have a higher percentage of the media revenue deal to bolster the
value of each performance unit.
The NCAA sharing March Madness revenue with its member schools has long been a
feature of the men's tournament. The 2018 tournament, for example, brought in
$844.3 million in television and marketing rights, the vast majority from a
contract with CBS and Turner Sports to televise the games.
Most of the money flows through the NCAA to conferences and then back to member
schools, more than 300 of which field Division I basketball teams eligible to
play in the tournament. The schools mostly reinvest in athletics, from
scholarships for athletes in all sports to coaching salaries, training
facilities, stadiums, ballparks and arenas.
The women's tournament is coming off its most successful year ever, which
included a record audience of 18.7 million for the title game won by South
Carolina over Iowa, the highest for a basketball broadcast of any kind in five
years.
It outdrew the men's championship game --- UConn winning its second consecutive
title with a victory over Purdue --- by nearly 3 million viewers. The women's
tournament also had record attendance.
___
AP Basketball Writer Doug Feinberg in Miami contributed to this report.
___
Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up
here. AP women's college basketball:
https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-womens-college-basketball-poll and
https://apnews.com/hub/womens-college-basketball
|
