TV Deals and "Units"

 One thing I've always remembered from growing up a women's basketball fan is just how dang hard it can be to find games. I would always go to watch and I would have to have some obscure TV package to view any of the games. Now if I wasn't super passionate about it I probably would've given up and I'm sure a lot of people do. It's all about accessibility. The men have a solo deal with CBS/Turner that was recently extended through 2032. They end up paying around $771 million annually. The women's TV deal is bundled in with 20 other NCAA championships and all of them together make up a 14 year, $500 million dollar deal. The women's NCAA tournament is viewed by nearly 5x as many people and include double the amount of games. This just isn't putting the women's tournament in a position to generate the maximum amount of revenue. This is exactly why the NCAA states that the women's tournament is operating at a loss which may be true but if viewership is increasing at a steady rate (it's up 25% from 2021) then why wouldn't you do everything you could to maximize the amount of money you can make? Putting women in a position to make the money they deserve is exactly what equality is about.

Units are another aspect that hinders women from generating the same amounts of money as men but this time for the well-being of the whole conference. Each men's team gets a "unit" valued at $338,210.26 for every single tournament game that they play. That money then gets funneled back to the school's conference. Women don't have anything like that nor has there been any effort to make this a reality.