Closing the Gap: NCAA President’s Plan to Introduce Performance-Based Financial Rewards in Women’s Tournament

Currently, women’s teams that qualify for the NCAA Tournament receive no financial compensation; in contrast, men’s teams receive units that are awarded to conferences for each game played before being distributed to individual institutions.

Although nothing has been approved as of yet, Baker stated that the finance committee is aiming for the 2024–25 season following the NCAA’s eight-year agreement with ESPN, which is valued at $115 million annually across 40 sports.

“We just signed a new contract with ESPN and women’s basketball is a big and important part of that deal,” Baker said Sunday. “It will also send a huge signal to women’s basketball generally about the fact you play in the tournament, you do well, you will benefit financially as well as in the other ways.”

The NCAA still needs to decide on the distribution of units, their value, and the involvement of conferences. The plan would need to be adopted in a complete Division I membership vote during the NCAA convention in January in order to go into effect for the upcoming year.

Lately, there has been an increase in women’s basketball. Viewership and attendance have increased dramatically. 14.2 million people watched the Iowa vs. UConn Final Four game on television. The score should be easily surpassed by South Carolina’s 87-75 victory over Iowa in Sunday’s championship game.

For years, women’s basketball coaches have been requesting systemic changes to reflect the game’s expansion. Dawn Staley, the coach of the Gamecocks, has always expressed the significance of obtaining financial units for the sport.

“You look at what the 68 teams are going to divide up, I think I saw $170 million between the 68 teams,” Staley said Saturday. “When you start bringing in revenue like that, it will move your campus in a different direction when it comes to women. So we’ve got to fight for that.”