Women’s March Madness fosters financial growth one year into ESPN extension

The GIST: It’s been a year since the NCAA extended its ESPN media rights partnership, which includes coverage of the women’s March Madness tournament. While women’s college hoops fans wanted it to have a separate media deal like the men’s, the tourney has still been able to make meaningful progress toward getting its athletes paid. Cha-ching.

The money: On Wednesday, NCAA Division I members unanimously approved a prize pool to financially reward women’s March Madness teams for their tournament performance. The men’s tourney has benefited from a similar “units” system for years, but the NCAA was waiting for a new TV contract before implementing it in women’s hoops.

• The pool will contain $15M in 2025, $20M in 2026, and $25M in 2027, which means each “unit” will be worth around $113K this season. Though the total amount is much lower than the men’s $226M 2024 pot, both tournaments set aside a similar percentage of their media rights deal for the prize pool.

The ad inventory: In December, ESPN sold out all ad inventory for the 2025 women’s March Madness championship game three months before tip-off. It also announced 156% growth in the tournament’s advertising revenue for 2025, while its advertising value was deemed level with the NFL’s Divisional Round games or the NBA Finals.

Zooming out: Media rights have been the most critical facet in growing women’s sports: Putting sports on TV allows fandoms to thrive, resources to soar, and the game’s ecosystem to develop. And although grouping women’s March Madness with other NCAA tournaments didn’t seem ideal to some, the deal has allowed the game to grow in key ways.

• And this growth should help the women’s tournament eventually become a standalone product. Brands like Samsung are already looking to activate specifically around the event, especially since women’s March Madness viewership was higher than the men’s in 2024. Wait for the signal.