Here in the United States, the women’s NCAA basketball tournament just wrapped up, South Carolina defeating Iowa, 87-75.
The game proved many things:
1/ South Carolina’s Dawn Staley is a genius coach. She had an all-new starting five. South Carolina went undefeated, 38-0.
2/ Caitlin Clark is a very good basketball player. She is an incredible perimeter shooter and it is big fun to watch her launch the 3-ball from Dubuque. She is an assists monster. But, three questions among many: a/ will the next lefty layup she shoots be her first? b/ basketball involves ‘offense’ and ‘defense,’ and while she is very good at the first, what about the second? c/ she had two chances and didn’t win an NCAA title?
Iowa’s Caitlin Clark in the second half of the NCAA women’s championship game, guarded by South Carolilna’s Raven Johnson // Getty Images
3/ The overwhelming majority of journalists seem not to care to understand history, and for sure finance, and people are sheep. It is fabulous that the championship game averaged 18.7 million viewers, most ever for a women’s basketball game in the United States, making Clark – who, let’s remember, has played for Team USA as an age-group player – a 100% lock for the U.S. women’s team at the 2024 Games, because above all sports are a television property and NBC needs numbers in Paris.
But that does not mean Caitlin Clark is single-handedly ‘growing the game.’
Or she is the greatest of all time.
Or the breathless reporting in some significant precincts about ‘growing the game’ absolves the ladies and gentlemen of the press of complicity in what’s what.
There’s a fantasy world in which people want to believe stuff. It feels good, sure. And then there is reality.
When the media devotes weeks of coverage, people watch. Duh. Why did the media latch this year onto women’s hoops? Because the men’s teams were boring. Because, too, the NCAA has finally come around in the past couple years to giving the women’s tourney the same attention as the men’s. Because, as well, NIL rights have allowed women’s players to have national notoriety despite an overarching lack of broadcast coverage when some number are, in their local markets, big stuff.
The women’s finals game has been a sell-out for 30 years, since 1995. The UConn-Tennessee rivalry years in the early 2000s – those games routinely drew over 25,000 fans. South Carolina has been averaging over 10,000 fans per home game since 2019.
Women suffer from the same issue in the media that all under-represented people face – there seemingly is only one storyline, one female athlete, who can be in the media at any given time.
Thus: a million jillion articles about Caitlin Clark. And let’s be real – some significant chunk of these were triggered by the episode with LSU’s Angel Reese in last year’s championship game, and the uncomfortable truth in America is that white and black is the oldest tale in sports storytelling.
A moment in time — the 2023 women’s national championship game, Clark and LSU’s Angel Reese // Getty Images
That’s reverting to form.
That’s not ‘growing the game.’
The White House amplified this uncomfortable truth last spring when First Lady Jill Biden suggested that LSU, last year’s winner, and Iowa, the runner-up, ought to be invited to the grounds for the traditional winners’ visit. The First Lady said both teams “played such a good game.”
Translation: Caitlin Clark is white, and the story of the Iowa women’s team is like a girl version of “Hoosiers,” and “Hoosiers” is a feel-good American meme.
In the end, only LSU went to the White House, keeping with the tradition that winners go, winners only, and Reese, who is black, gave the First Lady a jersey and a hug, but only after saying on the “I am Athlete” podcast: “I just know if the roles were reversed, they wouldn’t be the same. If we were to lose, we would not be getting invited to the White House.
Reese also said, "I mean, you felt like they should’ve came because of sportsmanship, right? They can have that spotlight. We’ll go to the Obamas. We’ll see Michelle. We’ll see Barack.”
Growing the game?
Who was interested this spring in writing about NC State, a No. 3 seed that played in the Final Four? How many of their profiles got a mini-profile – when Clark got the full Wright Thompson ESPN magazine-style treatment?
For realz, what was the biggest story in the women’s tournament? The freshmen class: JuJu Watkins at Southern Cal, Hannah Hidalgo at Notre Dame, Mikaylah Williams at LSU, who scored 42 in a November game against Kent State, most by an LSU freshman in the NCAA era of women’s basketball. And Staley’s “freshies” at South Carolina.
Friends in the media – is it really too much to ask to cover these players with the same fervor as the non-story that is 4.8-points-per game Bronny James and the NBA draft or transfer portal?
It just can’t be all about Clark. Because it’s not.
Over to Diana Taurasi, who on ESPN of all outlets, referring to Clark, said:
"Reality is coming. You look superhuman playing against some 18-year-olds but you're going to come play with some grown women that have been playing professional basketball for a long time."
At your local grocery checkout counter …
This focus on Clark does such a disservice to the likes of, among others, Cheryl Miller.
Miller was inducted into the basketball Hall of Fame in 1995. When her brother Reggie, maybe one of the greatest shooters in NBA history, was himself inducted too in 2012, he said, “I just happened to live across the hall from absolutely, positively the greatest women’s basketball player ever. I rode your shoulders all the way to the Hall of Fame.”
To be clear, Clark has consistently been gracious herself in acknowledging she stands on the shoulders of those who came before – the likes of Miller, Taurasi, Breanna Stewart, Brittney Griner, Kim Mulkey, Candace Parker, Rebecca Lobo, Chamique Holdsclaw, Lynette Woodard, Sheryl Swoopes, Teresa Edwards, Maya Moore, Elena Delle Donne, A’ja Wilson, Sabrina Ionescu and, absolutely, Staley.
Staley, a very, very brief CV: national college player of the year at Virginia, 1991 and 1992. Three-time Olympic gold medalist (1996, 2000, 2004), opening ceremony flagbearer, U.S. team, Athens 2004. Five-time WNBA all-star. Inducted 2013 Hall of Fame. Not done, not hardly. Head coach, U.S. national team, Tokyo 2021 Olympics, won gold. Over the past three years at South Carolina, including this one: two national championships, three losses total. Total.
Dawn Staley in celebration after winning Sunday in Cleveland // Getty Images
This ‘growing the game’ idiocy has been a mantra that the lazy and stupid in the media have been repeating for going on nearly 30 years.
Here, from a 2021 Andscape story, recalling women’s basketball fever in 1996, after the Atlanta Games: “Winning gold in front of a captivated home crowd had launched the sport into the forefront of the sports landscape, which led to the cultivation of that interest through magazine covers, talk show appearances and … a cameo on the hit sitcom Martin,” the Taylor Swift Eras Tour of its time, Staley crossing over the star’s show, Martin Payne.
The episode, 11-year WNBA vet Wendy Palmer said, according to Andscape, that “women’s basketball has been present, is present and, you know, start looking for these ladies.”
American viewers have been on the lookout for these “ladies” for 40 years.
This is the fallacy behind the 18.7 million number.
Basketball is basketball, and Americans will gladly tune in to see women play at a high level. This is a fact. That fact has been known for 40 years.
Repeat: 40 years.
In the 1983 NCAA championship game, Miller and USC defeated Mulkey and Louisiana Tech, 64-58. Viewership: 11.84 million.
Population of the United States in 1983: 233.8 million.
Simple sportswriter math: 11.8 divided by 233.8 equals 5.06%.
So, give or take, 5% of America watched the 1983 women’s title game.
There were no cellphones, no internet, and the game was shown on CBS, one of the three major over-the-air networks. For reference, in March 1983, the still pretty new ESPN launched its coverage of the USFL.
Compare:
Estimated population of the United States, April 2024: 341.4 million.
More sportswriter math: 18.7 divided by 341.4 equals 5.47%.
Let’s get the most ferocious advocates here and argue that 0.41% growth over 41 years is – wildly stupendous. Double-dare you to retire on 0.41% growth over 41 years.
Mind you, and feel free to argue this any way you want – the 2024 number has to compete with cellphones, internet, blah blah. Either folks are watching the game and texting with their friends … or they could care less because it’s Netflix and chill.
The women’s tournament is, has been for many years now, an ESPN/ABC property.
ESPN is giving Clark the same sort of spotlight it did four years ago for Ionescu.
Now: ESPN’s Thompson, who assuredly is neither lazy nor stupid, not hardly, writes a beyond lengthy profile after months of behind-the-scenes access. Upshot: Caitlin Clark turned 22, her Taylor Swift year, in January. And everything around her is a lot.
Four years ago, ESPN did a “cover story” on Ionescu. Headline: “The Legend of Sabrina Ionescu” Subhed: “… How she became the best in the game” Publicity for the piece, which was written by Maria Taylor, who was given months of behind-the-scenes access (Taylor is now at NBC, watch out Paris), and now quoting Taylor: “I think being given the resources, time, energy and opportunity to tell an in-depth story about a collegiate women’s basketball player is groundbreaking in many ways, but so is Sabrina.”
Are memories truly so short that so many have forgotten that Ionescu spoke at the 2020 service commemorating the lives of Kobe Bryant and his daughter?
Who said that day, “I wanted to be part of the generation that changed basketball for Gigi and her teammates. Where being born female didn’t mean being born behind, where greatness wasn’t divided by gender.”
Ionescu has her own shoe. This season, more than 75 NBA players have worn it. Who, really, is growing the game?
Sabrina Ionescu squaring off in February against Steph Curry in a 3-point challenge as part of the 2024 NBA all-star weekend in Indianapolis // Getty Images
Curry and Ionescu after the contest (he won) // Getty Images
This is why the single-minded focus on Clark is so off-putting.
The number that matters is not particularly the 18.7 million.
It’s not even the lesser men’s championship number, 14.8 million, for the snoozer of a UConn victory over Purdue. Comparing the two numbers is apples and oranges. The women’s final aired on one of the other three over-the-air networks, ABC. The men’s final was on cable TBS, and cable subscription numbers seem to be falling faster than the odds Bronny James gets free drinks anytime soon at the 901 Club on Figueroa. A fairer comparison when it comes to ‘the game’ would be this, as the Wall Street Journal reported:
The 2024 men’s tournament averaged 9.9 million viewers per game, the women’s 2.2 million.
When it comes to women’s basketball and a fair assessment of ‘growing the game,’ these numbers, too:
South Carolina’s victory over NC State in one of the two 2024 national semifinals drew 7.1 million. That trailed only Iowa-UConn (the other semi, 14.2 million, an outlier) and a Virginia-Stanford game on CBS in 1992 as the most-watched national semifinal, ever.
That 1992 game UVa game: 8.1 million.
The point guard for that Virginia team was one Dawn Staley.
Then there’s money. It talks. As Sportico reported:
The men’s tournament pays the NCAA $873 million. That jumps to $995 million in 2025 in Year One of a new deal with CBS and Turner that runs through 2032.
The NCAA also has a new deal with ESPN, eight years, starting this coming September, that wraps the women’s basketball tournament in with more than three dozen other sports, men’s and women’s. All in, the deal is worth $920 million. The package, as Front Office Sports noted, values the women’s basketball tournament at twice its previous price. That new value: $65 million annually.
Again, math: $995 million annually is stupendously way more than $65 million.
Everyone should also understand arguably the most important differentiator between the men’s and women’s tournaments.
In the lingo of the business, the differentiator is called a ‘unit.’
On the men’s side, Division 1 conferences get “units,” each a $2 million payout, based on how many of their teams make it to the dance, and how far they advance. The units are paid over a rolling six-year term. A team earns for every game with just two exceptions: the first game for each conference’s automatic qualifier, and the championship game.
This year’s tournament fund, all in, will pay $171.2 million, Sportico said.
As Front Office Sports explained, units don’t just reward schools for playing well. They also mark a huge incentive—spend now with the idea that you might earn units in the future.
The women’s tournament has no units. Not yet, and it’s not clear when if ever it might.
Caitlin Clark may have seemingly lived these past two weeks on ESPN, you can find her at the grocery store on magazine covers, and she surely will be on NBC from Paris at the Olympics, but it is a bizarre fantasy to declare — or to wish into existence the notion — she has fundamentally changed the game.
Not yet, at least.
It would be helpful if everyone, and in particular the media, would understand the fundamentals.
The TV numbers are more or less 1983, and the money is what it is. It’s reality.