Tourney had everything: Stars, upsets, undefeated champs
CLEVELAND — It wasn’t just Caitlin Clark. And no one knows that better than the Iowa superstar.
While the two-time Associated Press Player of the Year understands her impact on the NCAA Tournament during the Hawkeyes’ run to a second straight title game — with the sellouts she played in front of, the historic TV ratings and all those commercials, it was hard to miss — Clark never forgot that she was just part of the show.
It is why the NCAA’S alltime leading scorer is so confident what happened to the sport she loves over the last month is sustainable. Clark doesn’t view the culmination of her college career as the end of something. Hardly.
“When I think about women’s basketball going forward, obviously it’s just going to continue to grow, whether it’s at the WNBA level, whether it’s at the college level,” she said after the Hawkeyes fell to South Carolina in the championship game. “Everybody sees it. Everybody knows.”
If they didn’t before, they do now.
Attendance in the tournament was up across the board, not just in the games involving Clark. Ratings too. Social media hummed about everything from Clark to USC freshman star Juju Watkins to the officiating.
It culminated in a Final Four whose buzz at least rivaled that of the men’s.
Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse buzzed all weekend. More than 10,000 fans showed up for Iowa’s shootaround on Saturday and stars from former Hootie and the Blowfish frontman Darius Rucker to actor Jason Sudeikis to soccer star Megan Rapinoe were in the stands as the Gamecocks completed a perfect 38-0 season.
The vibe was palpable. “I remember two years ago, there was no talking about the women’s game,” Gamecocks sophomore guard Raven Johnson said. “I went on social media and all you saw was boys basketball. Now you go on social media, you see all these top players. You see women’s basketball being the face of all these (magazine) covers ... and in commercials when you’re watching the game. So that’s a big thing for women’s basketball. I’m loving it and it’s going to get better from here.”
Equitable money
The next step for the women’s tournament will likely be introducing the same “units” model that has long been a part of men’s March Madness. The concept provides a financial benefit to teams and conferences that reach the tournament, with the benefit increasing up to a point the deeper a school goes. The men have it, the women do not.
The NCAA’S finance committee is exploring ways to put the model in place before next year’s tournament so schools that reach the 68team field can share in a portion of the revenue from the NCAA’S TV deal with ESPN worth $115 million per year across 40 sports.
“I think it will be the start of what ought to be a terrific, numerative benefit for teams that make the tournament and do well,” Baker said.
Given the spike in the tournament’s popularity, the TV partnership with ESPN could be viewed as undervalued. Baker isn’t as concerned, believing the network — which had 43 cameras stuffed inside the arena this weekend and hours of pre- and postgame coverage on Sunday — will help the NCAA “max this thing out.”