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Why women’s basketball is gaining popularity on the men’s game.
It is really simple: the women’s game is getting more accepted every season by doing what the men did all these years, or until one-and-dones, the transfer portal and NIL came along to completely change it.
The proof was revealed Tuesday night when ratings came out on the NCAA Elite Eight game between LSU and Iowa. More than 12 million viewers tuned into the highly anticipated women’s rematch of the fiery game last season between Angel Reese and the Tigers and Caitlin Clark and the Hawkeyes.
The audience peaked at 16.1 million viewers, boosting women’s basketball more than 127 percent from the 2023 tournament, and they haven’t even played their Final Four yet. It was ESPN’s highest viewership for any basketball game since the 2018 NBA Eastern Conference finals.
The women have established stars who are the greatest players in their game, like Clark and UConn’s Paige Bueckers, who will square off in the prime time Final Four game Friday night after South Carolina and N.C. State in the first game. Clark had 41 points including nine 3-pointers in the win over LSU in which Reese played most of the game with a sprained ankle. Bueckers missed an entire season recovering from knee surgery and stayed in school to play again.
That’s the difference between the men’s game, which has great players who are unknown because they have bounced around in the transfer portal and through so-called NIL sponsorships that are really illegal pay for play.
We can thank Purdue’s Zach Edey, the 7-foot-4 center who has stayed all four years and is the sentimental favorite to win the Boilers first national championship, and N.C. State phenom D.J. Burns, a virtual unknown until his distinctive style emerged in the ACC and NCAA tournaments.
Burns transferred to State from Winthrop College after attending Tennessee as a freshman and has a uniquely skilled inside game that has caught the country by storm. A 6-9, 275-pounder, Burns has a personality to match his skill set and also plays three instruments: the tuba, piano and sax.
This is the last college season for Edey and Burns, further hurting a sport where the rosters are in constant turnover and players don’t stay long enough to get famous beyond their own fan bases. The women have far more stability of their stars and its NCAA tourney is exclusively on ESPN, which promotes the heck out of it.
The men’s game will settle down in a few years once Congress or the NCAA get a grip on NIL and the portal, but a large portion of the general public has lost its interest.
Featured image via Associated Press/Hans Pennink
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
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