March Madness is here — but it’s women’s basketball taking center stage this year, not the men. The University of Iowa’s record-breaking sharpshooter Caitlin Clark might be the biggest star in the college game, man or woman, but the growing popularity of the women’s bracket goes beyond her influence. “It is the women’s stars who shine the brightest,” Nicole Auerbach said at The Athletic. “It is the women’s game with the most intriguing storylines.”
It’s not just basketball. Women’s sports are expected to bring in more than $1 billion in revenue this year, CNBC said — driven by Clark and the women’s NCAA tournament, but also by the new Professional Women’s Hockey League and the upcoming summer Olympics, where for the first time there will be an equal number of male and female athletes. Last year’s WNBA season was the most-watched in its history. “It is a true testament of how women’s sports can flourish when given the proper stage,” said Sandy Brondello, coach of the New York Liberty.
“It is a long time coming,” South Carolina coach Dawn Staley, a women’s basketball legend, told Vanity Fair. Women athletes for decades have mostly been also-rans in the sports marketplace. That’s changing. “Women’s basketball,” Staley said, “is bursting at the seams.”
What did the commentators say?
“College basketball, for all its folklore heroes, has never seen a star like Clark,” Seerat Sohi said at The Ringer. The question now is whether Clark is “a movement or a moment.” It’s easy to get the sense that Clark could have made her way onto the national stage by sheer force of will. But it’s also the case that she’s building on the work done by generations of women’s athletes who came before her. Sohi’s conclusion: “I think she will be in our lives for a long time.”
“Caitlin Clark is just the beginning,” Alex Kirshner said at The Atlantic. Yes, Clark has made Iowa games “competitive in TV viewership with NBA games and the highest-profile men’s college matchups.” But the phenomenon goes beyond Clark: More people have heard of women’s stars like LSU’s Angel Reese (the best player on last year’s championship team) and USC’s Juju Watkins than Purdue’s Zach Edey, the reigning college men’s player of the year. And that says something. “Clark is the first star of this magnitude to emerge from women’s college sports, but she will not be the last.”
One amazing fact about all this: The NCAA only allowed the women’s tournament to claim the “March Madness” label two years ago, Bill Plaschke said at the Los Angeles Times. One reason women’s basketball is rising: Stars — like Clark — stay in college for multiple years, while the best male players usually stay for just a year before moving onto the NBA. “People go to men’s games to be entertained,” said UCLA coach Cori Close. “They go to women’s games to be connected and inspired.”
What next?
TV ratings are one measure of the growing popularity of women’s sports. Another? “Sports bars across America are opening with a mission to promote, amplify, and, most importantly, stream women’s sports,” said Vogue. Women-centered sports bars were “virtually non-existent” until 2022, when one Portland joint opened showing basketball, soccer and tennis matches. More establishments are following. “We’re doing our best to highlight these women athletes and so we’re creating our own spaces,” said one bar owner.
As is so often the case in sports these days, success attracts betting dollars. USA Today said that in the 38 states where sports gambling is legal, wagers on women’s sports are also on the rise. “Before, we would take a couple of games on the top teams,” said Johnny Avello, sportsbook director at DraftKings. “Now, we’re doing so much more than that.”
The first round of the women’s NCAA tournament starts on Friday. Clark and the University of Iowa take on the Holy Cross Crusaders on Saturday afternoon.