Without Caitlin Clark, the early rounds of this year’s March Madness women’s basketball tournament may have suffered a decline in viewing; nevertheless, plenty of other data points indicate that the women’s bracket still has magic.
Indeed, as ESPN just reported, the opening round of the 2025 women’s NCAA tournament averaged 367,000 viewers overall, down from 469,000 viewers in the 2024 first round, or a 22% reduction. Fans shouldn’t be overly concerned, though, even with the annual over-year drop in viewing. really, sports and marketing professionals claim, the viewership statistics could really be motivating.
“The real key is not how they compare to 2024, but how they do compared to 2023,” sports-loving economics professor Victor Matheson of the College of the Holy Cross advised MarketWatch. “As long as you’re heading toward a long run upward trend.”
And the rating swings from 2023 are significant: ESPN claimed that the 265,000 average viewers across all games so far in 2025 is up a startling 43% from 2023 levels, making for what is second-most viewed first round in women’s basketball history.
The secret is to examine ratings akin to dots on a line graph tracking something like the price of a company over time. Although steady increases are great, that kind of continuous growth with absolutely zero troughs is not usually realistic. Instead, a strong company may show individual up and down years while keeping an increasing trend.
Although some supporters would argue that Clark’s leaving the University of Iowa for the WNBA had anything to do with this year’s ratings decline, historically, sport leagues often naturally replace generational athletes as time goes on. Bright lights for the women’s game moving ahead are athletes like Paige Bueckers from the University of Connecticut and JuJu Watkins from the University of Southern California, who sustained an ACL injury during this year’s tournament.
“Caitlin Clark is a unique person that has drawn excitement in a way that we have not seen from any other player,” Matheson said. She won’t be the last one, though; “every league has turnover in stars. After [ Larry] Bird and [Magic] Johnson retired, some penned the obituary for the NBA; thereafter, Michael Jordan entered the picture. Jordan then calls it quits, and LeBron James and Steph Curry arrive.
Furthermore, the popularity of women’s basketball, or any sport, does not rely just on one player; even if star power can increase awareness. “Women’s basketball’s success was not Caitlin Clark on her own; it was Clark in conjunction with widely popular teams at South Carolina and LSU,” Matheson said.
Moreover, ratings are not the only yardstick of success since the business component of women’s March Madness is also growing.
Sensor Tower’s 2025 Bracket Buster analysis shows that the men’s and women’s March Madness tournaments this year’s overall digital advertising spend was up 80%.
“Capital One (COF), a title sponsor of the men’s and women’s NCAA tournament, increased its U.S. ad spend by 30x [year over year] in 2024, in part due of increasing spend on the women’s tournament,” the paper said.
The Walt Disney Co. (DIS), whose ESPN channel is showing the women’s tournament, reported total ad sales for the tournament increased 200% from previous year. Additionally sold out for months are ads for the April 6 women’s championship game, some of which are worth $1 million apiece.
According to an AdWeek study, the women’s tournament had 67 sponsors last year but gained 45 more this year for a total of 112 overall advertising in another indication of expansion. And those sponsors who stayed raised their budgets by 81%.
Media partners like ESPN didn’t reap significant commercial rewards for last year’s record-breaking women’s tournament at the time since broadcasters sell rights to ads or marketing campaigns well in advance of prominent events. Rather, broadcasters often profit on more costly ad campaigns the next year following significant ratings increases.
And a lot of female athletes are also seeing their own brands flourish on social media. Top earners in terms of name, image, and likeness (NIL) brand deals are athletes like Bueckers and Watkins. During their careers thus far, many of them have closed well over $1 million in agreements with companies like Nike (NKE), Bose and Taco Bell (YUM).
“If Paige’s proportion of knowledge is roughly the same as any one person on the men’s side, then I wouldn’t be surprised. Maybe [Duke University’s Copper Flagg], but maybe not even him,” Matheson added.
And at least one female player also has a contract with a big financial firm.
Flau’jae Johnson of Louisiana State University negotiated a brand contract with Experian (UK:EXPN), a consumer-services and financial-data business whose commercials are conspicuously shown during ad breaks for the men’s and women’s games. Experian promised to forgive $100,000 worth of consumer debt for every win Johnson’s LSU squad achieves as part of the contract. Right now, the windfall stands at $200,000.
“Every game is a chance to inspire not only on the court but also to advocate economic education that can change communities,” Johnson remarked in a statement to MarketWatch.
More importantly, Deloitte’s “Beyond the billion-dollar barrier: Charting the next phase of growth” study reveals that women’s athletes at major events like the Olympics participate more proportionately in social media than men’s athletes.
“Despite only 43% of the competition news coverage focused on women athletes, they generated 53% of total engagement across social content, showcasing the ability of women athletes to connect with both traditional and new fans,” authors Jennifer Haskel, Pete Giorgio, Zoe Burton and Lizzie Tantam wrote in the Deloitte report.
Women’s college basketball and women’s sports generally have an upward trend when teams from March Madness be compensated for the first time in 2025. Since 1991, the men’s teams have been compensated for their tournament involvement.
Unfortunately for players, NCAA policy forbids payments directly to athletes, hence those monies go to the athletic programs and conferences of their colleges rather than to individuals. Based on a team’s competition performance, the essentially prize money payments are computed.
While the women’s event will send out just $15 million, the men’s competition will divide almost $216 million this year.
