For the first time, the NCAA Women’s Basketball teams will be paid in the 2025 March Madness Tournament. The vote held on Wednesday, Jan. 15, was unanimous by all 292 NCAA members.
The money will be distributed through a unit system, with each team receiving one unit for an NCAA Tournament bid. The further a team advances in the tournament, the more units the team will possess.
These units will be divided from a $15 million money pool in the 2025 March Madness Tournament.
The NCAA projects to increase the money pool to $25 million by the 2028 tournament. The pool of money will increase by 2.9 percent, which is the same rate as the rest of the NCAA Division I teams at the moment.
Many figures in women’s college basketball gave their input on the triumph, including UConn’s own, Paige Bueckers.
“[Just] for women to capitalize on what we brought to the sport and what we do for just sports in general and entertainment and just to be able to be a part of that, we’re extremely grateful,” Bueckers said to ESPN.
There were many memorable moments throughout the 2024 collegiate women’s basketball.
The 2024 NCAA Women’s National Championship game reached 18.7 million viewers making it the most viewed basketball broadcast within the past five years. The 2024 NCAA Men’s National Championship had nearly three million less viewers.
This is not going to be the end of the NCAA’s efforts to invest in women’s college basketball.
While NCAA President Charlie Baker didn’t give details for his or his colleagues future plans, he did hint that their work is far from completion.
“That’s the part I hope, that someday down the road, we all will have someone say about us that they sit on the shoulders of the work that we did,” Baker said to ESPN.
Baker also said that investing in women’s basketball is the NCAA’s main priority.
The work is not done yet, but the start of many future efforts from the NCAA to continue supporting the rapidly growing sport of women’s basketball.
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