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There is a lot to celebrate when it comes to the progress in women's hoops has made over the last seven years. TV ratings continue to soar year after year and the talent pool has risen with more opportunities made available to young women. However, NCAAW basketball fans were reminded again television stations still don't value the sport they love despite the numbers indicating they should.
Kim Adams of Fox Sports tweeted a breakdown of which games will appear on “Feast Week.”
Based on the ESPN schedule of Division I games, here is the breakdown of how many men’s and women’s college basketball games will be nationally televised between Monday 11/21 – Friday 11/25:
Men: 86
Women: 8
— Kim Adams (@_kimadams) November 21, 2022
You read that correctly: 86 NCAAM games to 8 NCAAW games.
We constantly see Twitter trolls and recently some idiotic comedians say no one cares about women's basketball and the little exposure it gets from networks who own its rights are feeding into this apocryphal nonsense. There has to be a reckoning with places like ESPN who have been burying women's basketball on their networks. Either give up the rights to it so it has a chance to flourish more than it is now or step up to the plate and deliver what basketball fans want to see: more NCAAW games on primetime.
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Take last year's NCAA tournament for example. During last year's Elite Eight, UConn-N.C. State averaged 2.04 million viewers on ESPN, marking the largest audience for any Women’s NCAA Tournament game outside of the Final Four since Duke-UConn in the 2006. That viewership grew by a whopping 20% compared to the same time slot from the year before.
ESPN even acknowledged the rise in interest following the tournament.
“ESPN’s commitment to women’s basketball has never been stronger and this year’s viewership numbers are a clear indication of the growing popularity of the sport and the NCAA Women’s Tournament,” said Nick Dawson, ESPN vice president of programming and acquisitions. “Since ESPN began exclusively televising this event more than two decades ago, we have consistently strived to raise the bar in our presentation, and we are particularly gratified by our expanded coverage and the introduction of new elements like the MegaCast this year. We look forward to working with the NCAA to further enhance our presentation in the years ahead.”
Millions of people are tuning into women's basketball–and not just because they are fans or have a rooting interest. People are gambling on the sport more than they ever have before. Even though most gambling companies fumbled not giving lines to the start of the NCAAW season, people are clamoring for more ways to get involved on that side of the sport.
The access to gambling lines and the games themselves are important for any sport trying to rise to the level of other American professional sports leagues. However, the people running these networks are coasting on the idea perpetuated by mainstream media that women's hoops won't be successful. Give it the right resources–which includes more time in front of people's faces–and it will take off.
Feast Week is just another reminder that while the progress women's hoops continues to leap over hurdle after hurdle to be in the spotlight, there are other forces driving against its success.
