NCAA Basketball Championship Games a Study in Contrasts – Opinion

Although not wholly indicative of either sport, this year’s NCAA men’s and women’s basketball championships were definite opposites both on the court and in their media presentation.

Starting with the women’s Final Four, the seedings present — three #1 and one #2 — showcased the paucity of competition in women’s collegiate basketball compared to the men’s side. There are far fewer top-flight programs, with the same schools repeatedly returning to the tournament’s final stages. Every year since 2008, Connecticut has made it to the Final Four. South Carolina has won three out of five previous tournaments. Stanford, same. Louisville won two out of five. While fun for the dominant few, when you can skip a tournament’s first four rounds and still be confident who will be left playing, it doesn’t make for must-see TV.

There was also ESPN embarrassing itself (pardon the redundancy) by falling all over itself in an attempt to simultaneously hype the tournament and make it seem like the women’s tournament is on a par with the men’s in interest. Not really. It was a good matchup, with Stanford and Connecticut winning the Final Four. That’s not bad. The following evening’s men’s game between North Carolina and Duke? 16.3 million. Math isn’t hard.

Consider the actual championship games. On the women’s side, South Carolina dominated Connecticut from start to finish, winning 64-49. This was the unusual ending to the game. Connecticut won the ball. But Connecticut, with less than ten second left, threw it on the court. The clock was about to expire and Connecticut ran off. Meanwhile, the men’s championship game was compelling to watch from beginning to end. North Carolina was able to race out of the gate with a halftime advantage of 15 points. Kansas, however, set an NCAA record in the largest halftime deficit in NCAA championship game history. They fought back to win 72-69. The outcome was still in question until the final second, when the Tar Heels’ desperate three-point attempt fell short. North Carolina was also affected by injuries that slowed their progress. Still, it was terrific to watch (unless you’re a North Carolina fan).

Much furious ink has been spilled the past several days over how Things Will Even Out once the current TV contract covering the women’s tournament runs out in 2024.

Currently, the women’s basketball tournament is part of a television package that includes 28 other championships and pays out a mere $34 million a year.

Meanwhile, the NCAA’s deal with CBS and Turner for the men’s tournament that started at an average of $770 million per year with a 2016 extension that will bring that per-year average to $1.1 billion in 2025.

Um, sure. We can look at attendance. The men’s final game drew 69,423. The women’s? 18,304. And before anyone screams “unfair comparison” because the men’s game was at the Superdome in New Orleans and the women’s was at the Target Center in Minneapolis, the Superdome was sold out. However, the Target Center wasn’t.

You can’t have it both ways. It is impossible to simultaneously expel women from sport and declare them equals. People cannot be forced to watch or like any sport. It has been done in this country with soccer since the 1970s. Although it has enjoyed some success over the past 50 years, MLS is not on the same level or popularity as the NFL and MLB. People prefer watching men’s college basketball over women’s and men’s professional basketball over women’s. Period. After this year’s NCAA championship games, it’s easy to understand why.