Photo by: All Pro Photography/Dale Sparks
Mountaineers Hopeful of Capitalizing on Recent Women’s Basketball Buzz
April 11, 2023 12:15 PM | Women's Basketball, Blog
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Wren Baker has talked a lot about creating new sources of revenue for his West Virginia University Athletics Department.
Well, perhaps he can get a little help from women's basketball.
The sport is coming off its most successful national championship game in terms of viewership and interest when LSU outlasted Iowa 102-85 on Sunday, April 3.
That game drew a record 9.9 million viewers on ABC, and according to Front Office Sports, that's more than any women's college basketball game ever.
It's also more than any Major League Soccer game ever.
It's more than any Stanley Cup game since 1973, more than the 2023 Orange and Sugar Bowls, more than any 2023 Thursday Night Football game, more than the 2021 NBA Finals, more than the 2020 World Series and more than the season finale of the popular HBO series "The Last of Us."
It also performed better than the most recent Major League Baseball, NBA and NFL all-star games.
And there's more.
The women's championship audience exceeded every game of last year's NBA playoffs except for the NBA finals, every game of last year's Major League Baseball postseason except for the World Series, every NASCAR race since 2017, including the Daytona 500, and every NHL game in more than 50 years.
It also did a better rating than the Big 12, Pac-12 and ACC football championship games, as well as the Notre Dame-USC, LSU-Alabama, Ohio State-Penn State and Alabama-Texas football games, according to a recent tweet by The Athletic's Stewart Mandel.
For those of you on social media, you certainly saw the tweets regarding LSU's Angel Reese and Iowa's Caitlin Clark, as well as the unintended controversy First Lady Dr. Jill Biden got herself into by suggesting that both teams visit the White House.
Whatever your political views, the interaction is gold dust for a sport that for years has struggled to support itself outside of Storrs, Connecticut, and Knoxville, Tennessee.
Andrew Marchand, senior sports media columnist for the New York Post, and John Ourand, Sports Business Journal writer, postulated on their most recent Marchand and Ourand Sports Media Podcast that the women's college basketball tournament is now in a strong enough position to go out on its own as a separate media property.
"I don't see a path forward where they don't take the women's tournament out of that package and try and sell it on its own," Ourand said. "And I can tell you ESPN wants to keep it, and there are plenty of other (bidders).
"Can't you see CBS and Turner deciding that would be a perfect complement to their men's tournament as well? You can see NBC that wants to get in with the NBA wanting to be a part of it," he continued. "My expectation is that there is going to be a lot of noise and a lot of bidders that are going to be crawling around trying to get this. We've been talking a lot about the NBA rights deal for good reason. This is another rights deal that's going to be particularly important."
WVU's Baker, who recently wrapped up a stint on the men's NIT selection committee, said he is really excited about the direction of women's basketball.
He's the father of two daughters and a lifelong hoops junkie who recently hired the nation's sixth winningest active coach, Stephen F. Austin's Mark Kellogg, to lead his women's basketball program. The Mountaineer women are also coming off their best year ever for season ticket sales in 2022-23.
"I actually enjoyed watching the women's tournament more this year," Baker recently admitted. "I thought there were more highly competitive games and when those ratings came out, they were actually very close (to the men's tournament), so that's good to see.
"I saw (South Carolina coach) Dawn Staley talking about this, and those ratings are very, very important because that will drive an investment from TV in women's basketball, which will drive an investment from institutions in women's basketball," Baker added.
"As a girl dad, I can't get my two girls to play basketball, so maybe that's one of (Kellogg's) recruiting jobs is to get them interested in playing, but I'm raising two daughters, and I think there is something different when you are raising daughters about seeing opportunities for them," Baker said. "I'm excited about what's going on in women's basketball, and really, all women's sports."
Kellogg agrees.
"Women's basketball right now is in a fantastic spot," he said. "I think viewership was off the charts from everything that we're seeing. I was in Dallas, which was convenient for us. I went to the semifinals a couple of years ago when Mississippi State beat UConn, so we went back and saw some big-time games. That was high-level basketball, for sure, and something fun for the kids."
Kellogg believes it's going to take personal relationships and connections between the players and the fans for the sport to continue to grow.
"In order to do that we have to be visible; we have to be seen, and I want the little kids who are growing up to see themselves with our players," he explained. "My kids have done that, and their eyes grow big, so we want to be out there and involved, and we need to be seen (in the community)."
Presently, women's college basketball has never been in a stronger position to capitalize financially on its success.
Perhaps that can trickle down locally to places like Morgantown, West Virginia, as well.
Well, perhaps he can get a little help from women's basketball.
The sport is coming off its most successful national championship game in terms of viewership and interest when LSU outlasted Iowa 102-85 on Sunday, April 3.
That game drew a record 9.9 million viewers on ABC, and according to Front Office Sports, that's more than any women's college basketball game ever.
It's also more than any Major League Soccer game ever.
It's more than any Stanley Cup game since 1973, more than the 2023 Orange and Sugar Bowls, more than any 2023 Thursday Night Football game, more than the 2021 NBA Finals, more than the 2020 World Series and more than the season finale of the popular HBO series "The Last of Us."
It also performed better than the most recent Major League Baseball, NBA and NFL all-star games.
And there's more.
The women's championship audience exceeded every game of last year's NBA playoffs except for the NBA finals, every game of last year's Major League Baseball postseason except for the World Series, every NASCAR race since 2017, including the Daytona 500, and every NHL game in more than 50 years.
It also did a better rating than the Big 12, Pac-12 and ACC football championship games, as well as the Notre Dame-USC, LSU-Alabama, Ohio State-Penn State and Alabama-Texas football games, according to a recent tweet by The Athletic's Stewart Mandel.
For those of you on social media, you certainly saw the tweets regarding LSU's Angel Reese and Iowa's Caitlin Clark, as well as the unintended controversy First Lady Dr. Jill Biden got herself into by suggesting that both teams visit the White House.
Whatever your political views, the interaction is gold dust for a sport that for years has struggled to support itself outside of Storrs, Connecticut, and Knoxville, Tennessee.
Andrew Marchand, senior sports media columnist for the New York Post, and John Ourand, Sports Business Journal writer, postulated on their most recent Marchand and Ourand Sports Media Podcast that the women's college basketball tournament is now in a strong enough position to go out on its own as a separate media property.
"I don't see a path forward where they don't take the women's tournament out of that package and try and sell it on its own," Ourand said. "And I can tell you ESPN wants to keep it, and there are plenty of other (bidders).
"Can't you see CBS and Turner deciding that would be a perfect complement to their men's tournament as well? You can see NBC that wants to get in with the NBA wanting to be a part of it," he continued. "My expectation is that there is going to be a lot of noise and a lot of bidders that are going to be crawling around trying to get this. We've been talking a lot about the NBA rights deal for good reason. This is another rights deal that's going to be particularly important."
WVU's Baker, who recently wrapped up a stint on the men's NIT selection committee, said he is really excited about the direction of women's basketball.
He's the father of two daughters and a lifelong hoops junkie who recently hired the nation's sixth winningest active coach, Stephen F. Austin's Mark Kellogg, to lead his women's basketball program. The Mountaineer women are also coming off their best year ever for season ticket sales in 2022-23.
"I actually enjoyed watching the women's tournament more this year," Baker recently admitted. "I thought there were more highly competitive games and when those ratings came out, they were actually very close (to the men's tournament), so that's good to see.
"I saw (South Carolina coach) Dawn Staley talking about this, and those ratings are very, very important because that will drive an investment from TV in women's basketball, which will drive an investment from institutions in women's basketball," Baker added.
"As a girl dad, I can't get my two girls to play basketball, so maybe that's one of (Kellogg's) recruiting jobs is to get them interested in playing, but I'm raising two daughters, and I think there is something different when you are raising daughters about seeing opportunities for them," Baker said. "I'm excited about what's going on in women's basketball, and really, all women's sports."
Kellogg agrees.
"Women's basketball right now is in a fantastic spot," he said. "I think viewership was off the charts from everything that we're seeing. I was in Dallas, which was convenient for us. I went to the semifinals a couple of years ago when Mississippi State beat UConn, so we went back and saw some big-time games. That was high-level basketball, for sure, and something fun for the kids."Kellogg believes it's going to take personal relationships and connections between the players and the fans for the sport to continue to grow.
"In order to do that we have to be visible; we have to be seen, and I want the little kids who are growing up to see themselves with our players," he explained. "My kids have done that, and their eyes grow big, so we want to be out there and involved, and we need to be seen (in the community)."
Presently, women's college basketball has never been in a stronger position to capitalize financially on its success.
Perhaps that can trickle down locally to places like Morgantown, West Virginia, as well.
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