Dawn Staley transformed the market for women’s basketball coaches when she negotiated with South Carolina to make as much as its men’s basketball coach. Now, she wants the NCAA to do the same and negotiate an equitable deal with ESPN.
At a book event this month, Staley emphasized the growing popularity of women’s college basketball and called for the NCAA and the Worldwide Leader to rip up the deal they signed in January 2024 and “go back to the table.”
“We should get more money from ESPN,” Staley told a crowd in Columbia on Thursday. “We’re in a television deal. When we signed the deal three or four years ago, we weren’t where we are today. Let’s go back to the table and let’s talk about where we are today. Let’s negotiate in good faith.”
ESPN pays about $115 million annually to the NCAA to air 40 different championship events under the new eight-year deal. In a landmark move, the association agreed to pay out a total of $65 million annually in “units” to women’s basketball programs who participate in the NCAA tournament.
That change came after pressure from none other than Staley.
Still, given that even without Caitlin Clark and Iowa, this year’s championship game between Staley’s Gamecocks and the UConn Huskies drew an average of 8.5 million viewers, the women’s basketball tournament may be undervalued (not to mention women’s volleyball or even gymnastics).
CBS and TNT pay a combined $1.1 billion annually to the NCAA for the rights to air the men’s tournament. Using a rough estimate from this year, that championship game averaged 212% more viewers than the women’s title game. But the men’s tournament TV deal is nearly 1700% bigger than the $65 million number and nearly 1000% bigger than the $115 million total for all NCAA championships in the ESPN deal.
“I want ESPN to step up to the plate,” Staley added. “Give us a little bit more, from (college) to the WNBA.”
Within days of the WNBA’s new TV contracts worth an estimated $200 million annually, Hall of Famer Cheryl Miller ripped league leadership in a similar fashion for what she called a “lowball” deal.
At a press conference during All-Star weekend in Phoenix, Miller argued the deal should have been for at least $100 million more.
“We need tough and fair negotiators and visionaries,” Miller said. “And we need a bully, we need a bully behind the table that’s willing to say we’ll break up the pieces and go from there. But there’s a certain number bigger than 2 (hundred-million) that we want.”
The WNBA expects to add another $60 million annually to its media rights revenue by next year, according to commissioner Cathy Engelbert. ESPN is just one of a handful of partners with the pro league.
There is also an argument that women’s college basketball should be driving more value in regular season TV deals from conferences as well. Non-football sports are rarely broken out in the reporting around these deals, but Fox, NBC and ESPN have drawn substantial viewership for women’s basketball throughout the season in recent years as well.
Overall, as college sports grows, Staley won’t be the only voice arguing for their sports to get a bigger piece of the pie. And the numbers back up the two-time champion coach’s argument that women’s basketball should be at the front of that line.
About Brendon Kleen
Brendon is a Media Commentary staff writer at Awful Announcing. He has also covered basketball and sports business at Front Office Sports, SB Nation, Uproxx and more.