Good morning. We're covering the rise of women's college basketball — as well as student activists, housekeepers in Saudi Arabia and gentle parenting.
Crossover appeal
Attend, or even just watch, a women's sports game these days and you'll see the phrase splashed across the front of fans' black T-shirts: "Everyone watches women's sports." At last year's N.C.A.A. women's basketball tournament, that idea seemed truer than ever. For the first time since the inception of the N.C.A.A. women's championship in 1982, the women's final drew more viewers than the men's — 18.9 million compared with 14.8.
For the women, it was a dramatic jump from the year before, when the final drew almost 10 million viewers. For the men, it continued a downward trend: Viewership was roughly half what it was in 2015, according to Nielsen. The 2023 and 2024 finals featured Caitlin Clark, whose four years with the Iowa Hawkeyes helped push the sport to new highs. But Clark did not do it alone: Women's basketball had been growing before her arrival. A parade of superstarsMen's basketball had a head start. The N.C.A.A. was created in 1906, but it did not have leagues for all women's sports until after the 1972 passage of Title IX, a law that requires equal treatment for all students in school sports. Over those first seven decades, the men received more investment and also more airtime, which gave them greater visibility. Over the last 30 years, though, women have narrowed the attention gap, with help from a cadre of superstars who paved the way for Clark. Rebecca Lobo led the University of Connecticut to its first national championship in 1995; now the Huskies have a record 11 titles. Tennessee's Candace Parker in 2006 became the first woman to dunk during the N.C.A.A. tournament. And Sabrina Ionescu finished her career at Oregon in 2020 with more than 2,000 career points, 1,000 rebounds and 1,000 assists — the first men's or women's collegiate player to do so. A new eraMore recently, the rivalry between Clark of Iowa and Angel Reese of Louisiana State pushed the sport forward once again. Their games attracted sellout crowds, even on the road, and broke TV viewership records. At the same time, the popularity of the W.N.B.A., women's soccer, and even of sports like women's rugby exploded. Women's sports bars began opening across the country. Ad dollars rose sharply. And the introduction of name, image and likeness programs made it so that college athletes could cash in on their celebrity. With Clark and Reese now graduated to the W.N.B.A, women's college basketball seems to be holding its own. On ESPN, viewership is up 3 percent from last season, according to The Sports Business Journal. More than a million people tuned in to see U.C.L.A. defeat U.S.C. in the Big 10 Conference championship last Sunday — an impressive number, though it's two million fewer viewers than those who tuned in to the same game last year, when Clark played. Tonight, the N.C.A.A. will announce which teams are in the women's and men's tournaments. The women's field has big stars — including Paige Bueckers of UConn and JuJu Watkins of U.S.C. — and talented teams like Texas, Notre Dame and U.C.L.A. that will try to stop South Carolina from winning its second straight title. More from The Athletic
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domingo, 16 de marzo de 2025
The Morning: Crossover appeal
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