re: "Nobody Watches Women's Basketball", They Said! LSU Lady Tigers

I mean I'm glad LSU has a successful women's basketball team. LSU's athletic program is in a financial spot where they can afford to spend 2 million dollars a year on a women's basketball coach, thanks to football. With all of that being said, I'd bet the women's basketball program is still going to lose millions of dollars this year. For comparison, last year ticket sales grew by $842,526 and contributions grew by $551,336. The program still lost $6.55 million

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For comparison, last year ticket sales grew by $842,526 and contributions grew by $551,336.

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Without much bigger tv revenues WBB eill never break even much less turn a profit.

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Many prefer women basketball to baseball.

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It's hard some LSU fans to understand this as college baseball is such a passion here, but nationally women's hoops is better attended and gets better television ratings...and it's not even that close.

I've been watching this team all year. When I can't watch, I'm listening on the radio. I hadn't watched or listened to LSU wbb in about a decade before last season, so the money I'm not paying (unless I go to games, which I'm sure I'll do in the next few years) is worth it to me.

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"Nobody Watches Women's Basketball", They Said!

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"They" was right.

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And, unless you live in a hole, you've got to be blind to not see all the attention on television and social media this women's basketball program is receiving for LSU, not to mention how they've rallied the community and state around this program and university. I say Mulkey has been worth EVERY PENNEY and in fact, should receive a contract extension raising her yearly pay to 3 MILLION / YEAR!

I can't wait to hear some of the morons on The Rant from two years ago, try to STILL justify their hate for our Lady Tigers program.

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You are trying too hard.

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There's been talk about WBB getting their own separate TV deal like MBB has. Right now, the only sports that get their own TV deals are Football and MBB. If it were to happen, it would be a game changer for Women's basketball.

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This doesn't make sense. Are you saying if they had their own tv deal, people would watch? I don't care how much they get, their product is inferior to men. Pumping more money into is not going to get people to watch.

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but it's LSU, and I'm an alumni so, I want ALL OF OUR TEAMS to do well. It doesn't matter what I personally think of the sport itself.

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I could not agree more.

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There's been talk about WBB getting their own separate TV deal like MBB has

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Mickey, right now as the host the ncaa does negotiate with the networks for their tournaments separately. The MBB tourney brings in what a billion dollars. The WBB tourney doesn’t bring in enough money to pay much more than expenses. Little if any goes to the WBB participants while the men get millions depending on how far they advance.

As for reg season games the sec negotiates for everyone. They don’t bring in any revenue for the schools. It’s more about publicity in hopes one day it could catch on.

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Mickey, right now as the host the ncaa does negotiate with the networks for their tournaments separately. The MBB tourney brings in what a billion dollars. The WBB tourney doesn’t bring in enough money to pay much more than expenses. Little if any goes to the WBB participants while the men get millions depending on how far they advance.

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The WBB tournament is grouped in with all other NCAA championships. They are trying to see if it is viable to have a totally separate contract just for WBB like they have for MBB.

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The women’s title game will be broadcast on ABC — the first appearance on network television since 1995. Women’s basketball is part of a current contract that bundles all NCAA championships under one deal except for men’s basketball and football.

The NCAA is expected to decide by the fall if the women’s tournament will become a separate entity after hiring Endeavor, a consulting firm, to determine how to take championships to market.

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TV ratings have been trending up over the last two years. This year’s regular season was the most viewed on ESPN networks in eight years and was up 11% from last season. That came on the heels of last season’s title game between South Carolina and UConn that averaged 4.85 million viewers — the most for a women’s championship game since 2004. The first round had a 27% ratings increase from last year.

Attendance at the NCAA Tournament has continued to rise the past five seasons, growing by 60% in the first two rounds from an average of 4,464 in 2016 to 7,240 this year. This season had the highest attendance ever for the first two rounds.

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Now the NCAA hopes that growth is reflected in increased television revenue.

ESPN pays $34 million per year for the championships package, which it agreed to in 2011, including women’s basketball. But the law firm the NCAA hired to investigate equity issues in 2021 said in its report that estimated women’s basketball annual broadcast rights would be worth $81 million to $112 million.

The NCAA said the 2019 women’s tournament lost $2.8 million and those losses have multiplied the last two years since the the sports governing body increased spending after disparities between the men’s and women’s tourneys were pointed out.

If the NCAA can get close to the numbers projected in the 2021 report, it might be able to offer revenue shares — known as financial units — to women’s teams in the tournament in a structure similar to what the men receive from their March Madness tournament.

Men’s teams earn a slice of the money pie for their conference for every game they play excluding the championship. Each unit is paid by the NCAA over a six-year cycle. This year the NCAA will dole out $170 million to conferences from the men’s tournament.

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https://www.pressherald.com/2023/03/23/ncaa-womens-basketball-women-hope-sweet-16-next-step-to-own-march-madness-tv-deal