My women’s basketball March Madness bracket is busted.
And that’s a good thing.
The JWS (www.jwsbracketchallenge.com), sponsored by Dick’s Sporting Goods, features a $150,000 top prize. I’m sitting in 6,506th place going into the Elite 8, not good.
I have South Carolina winning it all and facing Iowa in the Final Four, but doesn’t everyone?
I’m not alone with a red bracket. Only two of the eight teams with a 50 percent or more probability at the beginning of the tournament to make the Elite 8 made it there, according to ESPN analytics.
It all adds up to more excitement.
That’s why South Carolina coach Dawn Staley is pushing for the women’s tournament to have its own television contract. The U.S. Basketball Writers Association’s National Coach of the Year continues to use her platform to call for more improvements to the women’s game.
“The annual broadcast rights for women’s basketball will be worth between $81 and $112 million in 2025 … higher than what ESPN currently pays for an entire annual package,” according to the NCAA Gender Equity Review. ESPN pays the NCAA around $34 million for women’s basketball and 28 other championships.
The current media rights contract with ESPN expires in 2024.
The 2023 women’s Division I basketball tournament Elite 8, without perennial favorite UConn in the mix, features tremendous storylines: from portal transfers to international players to fabulous freshmen.
Here’s three examples:
Kamilla Cardoso, junior center for South Carolina. Cardoso, who played her freshman year at Syracuse, has been dominant in her second season as a Gamecock. At Syracuse she was ACC Freshman of the Year, league co-Defensive Player of the Year and All-ACC First Team. For the Gamecocks, the 6-7 Cardoso has been a…
Read the full article here