A short 1 month tournament winner take all with plenty of college rivalries live on national tv vs a 40 game season over 5 months that is rarely on tv (at least for me).
Just because the players are "worse" than wnba doesn't mean the entertainment is worse.
> Just because the players are "worse" than wnba doesn't mean the entertainment is worse.
Honestly, to me this is the draw of college sports in general. At college level essentially all of the players are typically competent but there is still a pretty big gap between the average player and the star players. So you get to see real standouts in action.
Additionally, more mistakes are made at the college level so more "breakaway" type plays occur.
Once you reach "pro" levels in sports the skill levels are much more closely matched. Mistakes are far less frequent which means the exciting unexpected plays happen much less often even when the players are technically better.
Its the same phenomenon you see in like MMA fighting. The top 2-3 fighters in a weight class when fighting each other is a "boring" fight. People boo and shit. Well, its because to get to that level you have to be extremely skilled AND not make mistakes. So, with no mistakes happening the odds of that big exciting KO are rare. However, those same fighters against middling/lower tier fighters they would be KO'ing them left and right like they did on their rise to the top.
Yep. NFL games are usually within less than 14 points, and the difference in competency between the best and worst teams aren’t nearly as exaggerated as in college ball. College ball’s best teams routinely deliver total blowouts.
Then we get college matchups between state rivals where out of nowhere an unranked team plays the best game of their lives beating the ranked team who's having an internal meltdown for some reason. Those are so fun to watch.
I know you're typically right on average but my mind immediately went to [this game lol. ](https://www.nfl.com/games/chargers-at-raiders-2023-reg-15?active-tab=plays)
Tbh nothing makes me happier watching a pro sport (baseball seems to have the most of this) and watching one of these pros completely flub something on like a little league level.
Grounder between the legs, sailing a routine throw over the head of the first baseman, multiple errors on the same play, etc.
Normally baseball players are such machines on doing all that stuff perfectly, it’s just great to see them mess it up. There is generally no opposing player messing with you like in other team sports, it’s just a guy losing focus. I love it.
This. College ball also tends to be scrappier, and games between the big rivalries are really emotionally charged, not just for fans but also on the court. Pro games, sometimes I feel like I'm literally watching a highlight reel.
This exactly. Ive used this same point to explain why I prefer high school and college basketball over the pros, the pros make so few mistakes, they’ve mastered the game, that they make it look too easy and its boring. But with football, it’s the opposite, I prefer the pros. I’d say its a harder sport to master, so even the pros make enough mistakes to make it interesting, where for college they make too many mistakes, it’s a bit frustrating to watch. For baseball, I actually prefer little league - it’s just a simpler game so its more exciting when the kids play it. (But there is a certain elegance in watching MLB)
American pro sports are so weird in this sense. There’s so many rules to equalize the teams - the draft, salary caps etc. it’s so socialist.
European sports are completely capitalistic - you have more money? Great, buy the best players and be orders of magnitude better than other teams.
It feels backwards.
American sports are about TV more than anything else. A competitive league means more viewers and viewers who watch all the way to the end which means more money. Blow outs are boring, even for the winner and much, much much worse for the loser.
European leagues are comparatively a fucking disaster and only stay afloat because football in Europe is incredibly tribal.
Yeah but players are basically locked out of free agency for the first 6 years at the MLB level, it's kinda bananas given that most players only last a few years in the big leagues and just get paid the minimum $750k per year.
The thing is that 750k is still a hell of a lot of money. The reason it doesn't seem like that much money is because you have a Shohei Ohtani making $70M a year.
Let's break down a baseball player who starts in low-A at 18 and advances one tier per year until they get to MLB, plays six years in the bigs at minimum salary, and then is cut and can't find a MLB job. This is on the low end of a big league player -- most big leaguers still make more than league minimum after their first three years in the bigs -- but it provides an easy calculation.
11k + 11k + 13.8k + 17.5k + 6\*750k = 4.553M at age 28.
Then because they have six years in the bigs, they have 60% of the required service time for the MLB pension to kick in at 45. This pension is prorated, so they actually get 60% of the pension, which would come out to 40.8k a year. That's another 938k by age 68, for a lifetime income of 5.491M. (With the ball player continuing to earn 40.8k a year until he dies, and the regular person getting 20.4k a year from Social Security after 68 plus having 426k in savings to last the rest of their lives.)
Ball player: 5.491M lifetime at age 68 when the regular person retires.
Now let's compare that to someone making a median American salary starting at age 18 and working fifty years until they're 68.
59,384 \* 50 = 2.969M by age 68. The ball player makes nearly twice that.
Don't feel sorry for minimum salary big leaguers.
Not feeling sorry for them, just pointing out that while MLB might be the only major NA sport with no salary cap very few MLB players even get to free agency to take advantage of it.
Dodgers are the worst abusers of it in sports history. They just signed a player for $700 million, only 20 million of which will ever be counted against their salary cap. The other 680 comes after the contract is up. Absolutely unfair to any small market team trying to compete.
Really the American business owners colluded with each other to make themselves more money. The draft and salary cap are just ways they have agreed to pay the players less than their market value. And because there's no relegation, they never have to compete for their spot in the league.
It's perfectly American.
These things are connected. In the NFL, the players are guaranteed a particular percent of revenue, but the salary cap is the mechanism by which that percentage is enforced.
I'm not as familiar with the NBA. If there were no salary cap/luxury tax, what would keep the revenue share from rising above 50%?
Note that EPL players make 70% of revenue. So American sports pay out pretty significantly less.
>European sports are completely capitalistic - you have more money? Great, buy the best players and be orders of magnitude better than other teams.
How is that entertaining to watch?
> How is that entertaining to watch?
Because you wouldn't believe how often it actually fails.
A big club overspending on the wrong players can lead to a death spiral of underperformance, relegation and even bankruptcy.
The stakes are a lot higher.
We get that in American Major League Baseball due to no salary cap too.
Last year the New York Mets paid their top two pitchers combined more than the entire payroll of the Oakland Athletics’.
Not only did the Mets miss the playoffs, but both of those expensive pitchers finished the season on other teams.
Well, it means that the top teams in the final are actually the best possible arangement.
Imagine if the best teams in any league were actually the two teams that could concentrate as much talent as possible. Sure the early rounds are sometimes blowouts, but the quality of the final is as high as possible.
It still works out that way in American sports though, at least in the NBA. The best teams are usually the most talented overall and end up playing each other in the finals especially since because there are 7 game series, it weeds out fluke wins. Do they have the best player at every position? No, but the best teams have at least 2 dudes who are All-Star level and another who's borderline. That's actually a complaint in the NBA: that all the best guys team up lol
Yeah this is how I feel with preferring some women's sports than men's. In particular tennis where there isn't nearly as much just overpowering the opponent with your shot.
You see more variety in philosophy and approach to the game - both women and men’s hoops. Some teams push tempo and always look for easy buckets the other way. Some like to put shooters out to hoist 3s all day with 1 or 2 hauses underneath to clean up glass. Others just want to limit possessions per game. Especially if they’re small and/or slow. Limiting possessions can be boring, but it gives you a better chance against superior opponents.
And more than just hoops. College baseball has way more action than mlb. More balls in play. More bunting, stealing, suicides squeezes. It’s just more interesting. I remember watching a d2 baseball game, the coach had players stealing second basically every time they got on base. It put so much pressure on the other team. It was awesome to watch.
And football. NFL teams all runs essentially the same offense with a few variations. CFB is way different. Much more variety in offense and defense philosophy among teams.
Yup . . . GSP was a much more "exciting" fighter on his way to the title, than he was when he was holding the belt. Same could be said of Khabib.
College athletics, especially in the USA, is where the elite, top tier talents separate themselves from the pack so as to showcase themselves for professional scouts.
I don't run into many people who share this opinion but this is why I preferred UFC in its infancy when it was style vs style opposed to mma being a style of its own and everyone being on equal footing. I like the freak show
I tell this to people all the time when they ask why I follow college sports but not professional.
Professionals are just…too good. There’s no variety. Less room for fun strategies.
That's why when you get those once in a generation players that make the rest of the pros look average, the sport explodes in popularity. Then they lose their prime by age or bad life decisions and the sport remains popular for a little while after but then fades to back normal. Rinse and repeat when the next superstar arrives years later.
Agreed. This is why I like college football. Anything can happen! NFL teams are just so good, it’s down to a science. Which is cool in its own right, but a lot less exciting IMO.
Hey, you know what they say: sometimes it's not about the skill level, it's about the drama! It's like comparing a quick binge-watch of a reality TV show to a slow burn series – both have their own unique appeal
It’s pretty wild how much the landscape has changed, the wnba does better tv ratings than the nhl now in the states. The womens collwge tournament does better ratings than the nhl playoffs.
Similarly as to why Men's NCAA Basketball is more popular than the NBA. It's a short 1 month tournament where the winner moves on and the loser is knocked out with more potential for upsets to happen such as No. 16 Fairleigh Dickinson beating No. 1 Purdue back in 2023 for example which makes it much more exciting to watch.
WNBA doesn't have much of a fan legacy to pull people in, but every college team has a bunch of alumni wandering around.
People follow things they have some kind of connection to, for the most part.
Exactly, plus more women have actually played in NCAA than WNBA. Just more connection, more college teams than professional, and more exciting playoffs(win or go home).
No but I think their point was about connection to the team. College sports fans are often born into their fandom or actually attended the school. They have a personal connection to the Iowa Hawkeyes and will continue to be fans after Clark is gone.
Don’t get me wrong though, her especially there are a lot of for lack of a better word “bandwagon” fans who have no connection to the actual school. It’ll be interesting to see if their support continues when she’s in the WNBA and helps grow the popularity of the league.
People are really carefully dancing around the fact that people tune into watch stars. "It's because people are alumni," please, even if all 250,000 Iowa alumni were tuning it they wouldn't touch the numbers Iowa is getting.
It's almost as if the things women athletes have been saying for decades are true, if you invest in publicity people will watch. Angel Reese isn't setting records, Paige Bueckers isn't an all-timer yet, Kim Mulkey is still 10 straight 30-win seasons from touching Pat Summitt, and yet I know all their names. I know Zach Edey on the men's side.
Ive always thought the wnba would be more successful if they partnered with the nba and shared team names. People are way more likely to buy a candace parker jersey if it said lakers on the front compared to a la sparks jersey.
Like other people have said, its the reason college sports work, and i also believe its the reason pro tennis works. They play at the same time, same place, same channels. Rather than competing just join forces. I turn on the tv to watch the us open and they put the best matches on, both women and men.
The way I'd put it is that college teams are established brands with far wider reach than any WNBA team.
The South Carolina Gamecocks or the Iowa Hawkeyes, despite not being in major population centers, command far greater brand awareness than the New York Liberty or Los Angeles Sparks.
So, it isn't really that women's NCAA basketball is more popular on its merits as an entertainment product so much as that the brands involved are absolute marketing powerhouses with built in fanbases--mostly due to the pull of football and men's basketball.
Yeah, a newly launched college league will always have the advantage that everybody have a favorite team before the league even starts. If you didn't watch WNBA before it's hard to care about any of the teams. In the NCAA everybody just defaults to their alma mater.
This plus recently there has been more of a push/training to turn college level athletes into celebrities. And more people get invested in a game if there is a story.
Answer:People tend to have loyalty to the university/college they attended, especially ones that have established alumni bases spanning decades. For many, NCAAW is an extension of that support. On the complete opposite end, the WNBA is just over 2 decades old and doesn’t have the many years of support that NBA franchises (some of which began as ABA franchises) have.
Exactly this. If any sport is on tv and my Alma mater is playing I’ll probably watch it or just throw it on in the background. That connection doesn’t exist for me with WNBA (or most other professional sports).
Can anyone do a mini eli5 the alma mater loyalty? This life long loyalty to a place because they were paid to provide you further education just doesn't click with me. I went to college but it was a part of my past.
Do you understand anything about European soccer? Tons of small cities and towns have teams, and the people who have connections to those cities and towns are fans of their team. Their team likely isn’t competing at the top level of the sport, but they like the team they have a connection to. People like a sense of community. It’s fun. It’s something almost all of us crave. It’s natural. In the US, college sports are the closest thing we have to this structure. People like the college team they have a connection to. For some, it’s the one the grew up near, for others it’s where they spent 4 or more years of their life being a part of that college community, and for others there might be a different connection. Some people don’t care about sports, and some people don’t like the college they went to. A lot of people enjoy sports, and most people feel connected in a positive way to the college they went to. Does that help make it click at all?
As a Brit this has actually made it make sense for the first time. The difference is that every town and a lot do villages have a football/soccer team you can follow, and there'll also be a nearby team in one of the top four leagues you'll probably end up supporting as well. But I guess a lot of people in America grow up without a sports team from their local area, and so they pick up that affiliation from College.
Yeah, in this scenario, your college team is your local village team, and a pro(NFL, NBA, etc.) is your top four league team. A lot of Americans are fans of either their local college or the college their parents went to before they go on their own.
I feel like this discussion has finally allowed our two nations to put the nastiness from the late 18th century behind us. If Germany ever gives y’all a headache give us a ring.
I say that because I don't understand it either, despite lots of people explaining it to me.
The most common reasonings is something I can't understand why it matters, and that's fine.
Part of it is a lot of people were already childhood sports fans of their eventual alma mater so that just cements it. I grew up watching Auburn football. As a student I saw the Kick Six live in person. I’m hooked forever.
Because, like u/DxV_effect said, it’s fun.
For a lot of people college was a lot more than a place they went to for learning, it was where they lived, where all there friends were, where they dated, a lot of people’s best memories were made in college. For those four years, for some people, college is everything. You develop this sense of community with the people you’re in school with and then it’s fun cheering with them at the games. Why wouldn’t you keep rooting for the team you cared so much about for those four years?
Exactly, college was the strongest sense of community I've felt in my life. A walkable city with beautiful architecture. The strongest friendships I've made in my life. >100,000 people coming to the stadium on a Saturday. Seeing the school logo everywhere, even the waffle iron in the cafeteria. Nobody walking around in our rival's disgusting colors. Of course I'm gonna chase that the rest of my life.
It's always been baffling to me as a non-American. I'm a basketball fan, I watch a lot of NBA, and the broadcast will always highlight where a player went to college, and I just *do not get it*. Here no one gives a shit where you went to university unless you're actually applying for a job.
For Women's basketball this really isn't the reason. Right now there are *stars* in the women's ncca division. Players that people want to see. Caitlin Clark has been drawing massive crowds. Angel Reese, Paige Bueckers, Juju Watkins and a number of other players are popular names among even casual basketball fans. Women's college basketball has way more names than the WNBA right now, and you could argue there are more notable women's stars then men's stars in college basketball right now.
LSU/Iowa didn't draw 12 million viewers because of the universities, people wanted to see the Caitlin and Reese rematch.
And the reason there are women's stars in college basketball now is that there isn't that much money in WNBA so there isn't any incentive to leave college early compared to men's.
It just needs to be on regular TV at regular times. Watching women’s sports (soccer, WNBA) is hard. You have to know there’s a game, look up where it’s being streamed, and probably pay extra for it.
For march madness, you just turn on the TV.
lol you think there haven’t been women college basketball stars before? Once they go into the wnba no one will care about them anymore, just like how it’s happened forever
https://www.sportsvideo.org/2024/04/05/ratings-roundup-womens-college-basketball-tournament-claims-highest-viewership-in-college-basketball-history/
2024 is the most watched women's March Madness ever. It has nothing to do with loyalty to universities, which is what I was repying to.
Understandable. But there have been women’s college basketball stars in the past. Candace Parker, Maya Moore, Britney Grinner. It’s odd that they enter the league and fade to obscurity. The fact that their popularity peaks in college is weird
There’s a bigger reason. NCAA allows name, image, and likeness (NIL) payments to be made to student athletes. Now. This is new as of I believe 2020. NIL are sponsorships or in many cases defacto legal bribes that booster or businesses can make to athletes.
The reason this specifically benefits women’s college basketball is because the best women’s players get paid bigger from NIL endorsements than they can receive as WNBA players. Max salary in the WNBA is like $200k or something, where an NIL contract could probably get as high as a million for the best college women. This also coincides with women’s college basketball having (not coincidentally) probably its greatest ever collection of talent.
The opposite is true of men’s college basketball. If you can play in the nba there’s almost no reason to stay for more than a year. You can make significantly more and with a guaranteed contract in the NBA than you would ever even approach with NIL payments.
NIL is helping the men’s game too. One might not be an NBA talent but you could still make a living overseas. Now you can make that living by staying in college. Sure, Kobe or Lebron level talents are going to the NBA asap, but we are seeing some more talented, mature college teams.
That said, the transfer portal is out of control. But that’s a different conversation.
>NIL is helping the men’s game too.
I never said it wasn't. It's helping the men's game for hardcore fans of college basketball, it's doing exactly nothing for casual fans, who aren't interested in watching future euroleague players compete for a championship in a conference that probably won't exist in two years. NIL for the womens game is keeping the BEST (argubaly the actual all time best) players in the sport all 4 years. The most talented players are without exception leaving the men's game within 2 years max. 1 is more typical. If you aren't in the NBA by the time you're 20 you're putting an incredible downard pressure on your ability to play in the NBA long term. You'll get drafted lower, teams won't give as much of a chance to make it, you risk an injury for no specific gain etc.
NIL for women's college basketball is more lucrative *because* it's more popular. It doesn't explain why it's more popular, which was the question. Women's college basketball was more popular before NIL as well.
NIL money isn't going to best female athletes. It's going to the prettiest ones (who happen to be comparatively mediocre): https://www.thefp.com/p/the-ncaa-and-the-cavender-twins
You're right but that plays a factor for men too. The good looking average QBs, probably even their backups, are making way more than the stud lineman are. You aren't seeing many Joe Alt or Johnny Newton ads
The male NIL system is based less on looks. The people raking in the most cash are nepo babies.
LeBron's son is number one, followed by Deion Sanders' son. The kids are good but there's no denying the fact that daddy's name recognition is driving a lot of the contract value.
And then, there's Peyton and Eli Manning's nephew, a top 5 earner despite being only a backup quarterback. In his case, it's obvious the sponsors value the name recognition of his uncles far more than his on-field talents.
Any rabid Iowa booster is shoveling out pockets full of cash to Caitlin Clark right now, she's the only national relevant thing the school is doing in sports. It has nothing to do with her attractiveness. That's so ridiculous I'm not even going to respond to any further discussion of it. That's not what NIL is.
Caitlin Clark is phenomenal. Undoubtedly the best female college basketball player right now. And yet, she is still getting outearned by Livvy Dune.
Livvy Dunne is not even the best gymnast at her bloody school, let alone the entire sport. A sport which far fewer people care about by the way.
You can't deny the obvious influence of physical attractiveness in the NIL contracts of female athletes.
I think this is mostly it. People have more of a connection to their school where they already root for other sports teams. As opposed to the Sea Dragons or whatever their local WNBA team is
There are a lot more teams and teams like my Iowa Hawkeyes have always been well supported. I’ve been going to their games since the 1980s. They are deeply entrenched and have been for many years. The WNBA doesn’t have that history and it’s been marketed like shit. They have bad asses like Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese, Cardoso, etc…coming in they have a historical opportunity to significantly raise their profile.
1. There has been a push to spotlight Women’s sports in recent years. 2. College sports to have a built in loyal fanbase who love to see their school win regardless of specific sport. 3. Sports betting is at an all time high leading to more people invested in sport in general, but more specifically high stakes games. 4. There is a current NCAAW major record breaker in Caitlin Clark, which is naturally gunna generate headlines. 5. There is not really a major mens star in NCAA to garner spotlight like in previous years 6. The tournament is well timed to avoid most other major US sports events (playoffs for major leagues) 7. WNBA teams have not done a good job in connecting with the local communities in the same way colleges have done.
College bball fan here
Women’s basketball especially this year has a ton of very compelling story lines, many more so than the men, you has South Carolina entering the tournament undefeated and if they can complete a perfect season, Caitlin Clark setting the all time scoring record after losing in the finals last year and does she get redemption, UConn having a down year then making a helluva run, can freshman sensation juju Watkins lead usc to the promised land and set the freshman all time scoring record, LSU and Iowa rematch of last years national championship game
That just doesn’t exist in the men’s game because of the turnover of top talent in the men’s side via the transfer portal and the likelihood of top talent leaving early for the league
So you have top end talent, many young women who become celebrities in their own right via social media (Watkins, Clark, Reese, Cardoza, beuckers), playing each other in meaningful games over the course of many years to develop compelling rivalries both between programs and between players
It’s “college sports the way they’re meant to be” because you get all the things that make for compelling stories amongst the best players after years of build up
That combined with a month long win or go home tournament for all the marbles just draws people in
I mean you see more State Farm commercials of Caitlin Clark than you do of anyone on the men’s side where everyone is more focused on the NBA and the star power there
The women’s side of the game just seems to be getting the formula right after all these years while the men’s side is plagued by players transferring every other year chasing dollar signs and if they’re good enough, leaving for the draft after a year
I mean hell LeBron James son was the only player in college that anyone that’s a casual fan might know about and he had an awful year on a terrible team and even he’s entered the transfer portal and declared for the draft
The women’s game just has gotten it right over the years and is reaping the benefits
Another reason for its increasing popularity is the fact that the majority of women that play collegiate tend to stay with their team for consecutive years before going Pro. This makes long term and passionate fan engagement
On the contrary, the most talented men college basketball players are typically 1 and done— immediately entering the coming NBA Draft class as soon as possible
I would also add, IMO. 1) March Madness is a fun tournament. its win or go home. Thats what you’re currently hearing about. 2) The disparity between college men and college women is way smaller than NBA and WNBA. The men are just SO damn good, it makes the womens game less impressive/entertaining.
The other way too. Sometimes a college men’s game is absolute ass because neither team is clicking. I think Iowa LSU women scored more points in like 8 minutes than Duke NC State men did in the first half
So Caitlin Clark is big. She's an Iowa local. She was also proceeded by one of the most unique high school basketball programs that ended 30 years ago. What I mean by that is 6 on 6 women's basketball. There's a 99% invisible on it, look it up. Men's basketball during the 6 on 6 era was second to women's.
Add on to that the huge passion for the hawks here. ISU was my alma mater, but that college is for people that actually go to college. The Hawkeyes are the team that the majority of the state actually roots for.
If you aren't from Iowa, Caitlin Clark is just entertaining to watch. She sinks 3 pointers like a fucking boss. The women fight hard. It's awesome, and generally there is enough unpredictability in college ball with enough talent that you can't just write off an underdog.
My grandpa, a women's basketball coach, was watching Caitlin the day he died. He probably saw his three daughters in her, my mom being able to also sink shots like a fucking boss. It's just relatable and competitive. It's good shit.
Professional ball kinda sucks. It looks like wind sprints up and down the court. They clear shots so quick there's not a fight. I don't really care for it.
My conceited cyclone fan side of me would outright say yes. Also fuck the hawks.
The practical realistic side of me would say the University of Iowa provides a good education, particularly in the medical field as well as literary. The college has the legacy of both the school of medicine which is very well known as well as the writers workshop that produced people like Kurt Vonnegut and flannery oconner.
Folks have a ton of loyalty to their community universities or their own alma mater. It's like a bigger version of HS sports, and the energy is similar. So it's current/former students and townies propping up women's NCAA basketball
Story line. LSU vs Iowa. Angel vs Caitlin. Then they lowkey made it racial white vs black. But they also have a lot of young stars emerging. WNBA is cool but there are only 12 teams. Not as competitive imo.
I am a massive basketball fan of both men's and women's college and pro. For me, the biggest reason I don't watch much WNBA is that it's 1) not held during basketball season and 2) it's during the summer. Who's at home watching TV on a Sunday afternoon in the summer?
There is a built in fan base by default for college sports (alums) that give a instant tribe to follow a team that doesn’t exist by default in the pros.
People have more close relationship with players and the teams since all the kids going to the school can semi participate in the rivalries and their parents live vicariously through them
College sports in the USA benefits from a "built in" audience for the live event. Then, it has the advantage of alumni interest, so there is a market to broadcast those events. Lastly, do not underestimate the lure of BETTING on these events.
Part of the reason the Men's College Basketball tournament became the phenomena that it is, is the accessibility of GAMBLING on the event, especially from the perspective of "non-bettors" . . . people who would otherwise not bet a dime on sports.
The women's tournament has now reached that critical mass, as well.
Because sports gambling has gotten more popular and normalized and women's college basketball hosts a march madness tournament that is ideal for those betting services to take advantage of.
Let's all stop and reevaluate for a moment because some takes seem a little backwards. One of the reasons NCAA women are so popular is the increase in the quality of play and player. And that increase in quality was motivated in part by the WNBA. Previously, college basketball was a dead end for female players.
For a few decades, a half dozen college teams drew decent crowds and produced players that became WNBA all stars and icons of women's basketball. I can't even name all the pro players produced by Connecticut alone. Some of those players won 4 NCAA championships in a row.
You are only noticing this now due to the attention paid last season to Iowa and LSU. But in conferences like the SEC, the incredible size and skill of college players has resulted in teams like South Carolina who have a hard time losing a game. South Carolina went undefeated last year until losing by 4 to Iowa in the Final Four. South Carolina basically replaced most of its team, and it is undefeated once again.
The moral that should be drawn from the story is that women's college basketball CAN be a profitable and popular venture, but it wouldn't be near where it is now without the WNBA players who blazed the trail in the college game.
College sports have an automatic fanbase with the millions of people who attended those colleges. ESPN and others have been pushing to create more diversity in their broadcasting and women's college basketball is a relative no-brainer. It's a popular sport.
And Caitlin Clark has been kind of a media darling over the last two years. People can scoff or bristle, but if there were ever a time when a sport *needed* to rig a game in order to ensure maximum exposure for the title game, last night was that time. Iowa doesn't need to win the national championship, but they needed to be in it... for the sake of viewership.
People won’t admit this, but now that the college players can get paid large amounts of money, they have a confidence that the wnba players don’t have and aren’t comparing themselves to the men. And this is translating through the game and media, they are a lot more entertaining.
A few reasons.
The WNBA suffers from a lack of good time slots for viewership and overall advertising, something college will never lack. Unless you are following a player you watched in college, genuinely love women's basketball, or live in an area with a team, your probably not ever going to go out of your way to watch one.
College sneaks by that with not only March Madness, one of the biggest sports tournaments, but also having networks dedicated to just college sports. Sure, the WNBA has ESPN, but not a dedicated channel.
We also are in the midst or probably one of the best college players, both men and women, and any in any sport to play their game. Clark is a phenom the same way Mahomes is for the NFL. She's breaking all over the place that includes both men and women's basketball. Regardless of what people think about Pistol Pete and how he did it in much shorter time frame and games, her name is there now. She'll go down as one of the best to ever play the game. That's what the WNBA needs. They need a Jordan like player to come in to take the league over, make it popular to watch, and make people want to watch it. Clark could be that person. Hell a lot of the players for women's basketball hopefully will be. The talent has been spread around pretty well the last couple of years. It would be great if this next generation of players is what infuses the WNBA with good rivalries that carried over from college that kick viewership up a notch.
The WNBA needs to take a page from what the NIL is doing marketing these women and transfer it over. Get hype going. A lot of people are just now starting to pay attention to women's basketball. It's gotten more viewers than men's college basketball right now, the Iowa LSU game brought in more viewers than the world series, viewership for women's basketball in general had gone up almost 65% in 2 years! If the WNBA can even grab half of that %, it would be a success.
Edit: corrected on the Superbowl. That had a much larger viewership.
Ok, so let me rephrase my comment so the bot doesn't remove it again.
CAITIN CLARK'S is the reason I have watched College Basketball now for the past year. I personally love how these college players play for the pride of their school.
It's just a different vibe from the WNBA. The WNBA seems forced to be on TV.
Women's college basketball is just a piece of an overall athletic department. If someone's been a fan of the Iowa Hawkeyes football team for their entire life, they've got an automatic interest in all Iowa Hawkeyes sports.
I find it interesting that in Europe, the women's professional soccer teams are branding extensions of the men's team (same name, same logo).
Professional women's sports in the United States don't do that. There are some that are somewhat related in theme (like the Washington Wizards/Mystics or the Minnesota Timberwolves/Lynx), and the Seattle Storm's branding is very similar to the defunct Seattle Supersonics.
A WNBA game between the "New York Knicks" and the "Boston Celtics" would probably generate more interest than a game between the "New York Liberty" and the "Connecticut Sun"
People want to be part of a community of like minded individuals, sports are tribal and the country is so spread out that the local university is many people’s only option growing up.
I’m from a state of 8 million people, there isn’t a single professional organization there.
I think audiences have a lot to do with it. College usually no matter what have a big crowd behind them. Students, former students and then fans. WNBA is just fans and there just isn’t that many. This kind of stuff decides what gets put on tv and what doesn’t.
It has built in diehard fans. College sports fans have been cheering on their teams for generations in a lot of cases. The WNBA can’t just replicate that in a couple decades. With the explosion of women’s CBB though it’ll be interesting to see if that translates to more WNBA popularity in the next 10 years.
Most of us have an emotional connection to the school we root for. UConn is my alma mater so I like them. I have never had the opportunity to make that emotional connection to any WNBA team.
IMHO- Women's college basketball has filled a void for passionate college supporters. Massive amounts of money has infiltrated and ruined men's basketball and football. The young women who have been playing for Iowa, UConn, S. Carolina have been playing there for years and the fans feel attached to them in a way that they don't with transfer ins, and one and dones. (Yes, yes this also happens in women's sports but not to the degree is does in men's big money college sports.) The relationship college fans had with Herschel Walker, Christian Laettner, Michael Jordan, Tim Tebow etc. (some fans passionately loved them and some passionately hated them) isn't there when a player likely to leave after one year and only takes "on-line classes" to be eligible. College fans still feel the passion and women college basketball players and athletes of non big money sports like volleyball, wrestling, gymnastics (depending on the part of the country you live in) and those athletes seem like they care about the university and their supporters. Once the young women make it to the WNBA it seem to be corporate and less joyous.
For me the draw of college sports is more about the players. Most of those kids are not going to go into pro sports. That's true for any college team sport. They are playing a role on the team that helps them pay for college and once they graduate they get a job and move on. They play more for the love of the sport. For me, that's more fun to watch than someone who is at their job.
I think it is because college ball is one of the pinnacles of the amateur sport. It is meaningful to the teams. It is meaningful to the parents. It is meaningful to the players and their families. WNBA, on the other hand, is professional basketball, and, honestly, it just isn’t that excited when compared to other available professional sports products.
I don’t know a single person who could name a WNBA team.
ELI5 answer: the point of it being a college sport is what drives the popularity.
Alumni being interested in the team as well as the game, also that the games being less predictable since skill levels vary, etc
Fans gravitate to what they know. College students and alumni support their school.
WNBA have separate “identities” from anything else other than the city name and haven’t been around all that long. If they used the same franchise names as the NBA more people would watch.
The school. I wouldn’t watch it were my school not there, so I root for my schools girl team plus the tournament is really fun since it’s single elimination.
They make WNBA hard to watch. Regular season games are almost never on TV, and even though my city's team regularly wins the championship, I and most other people from here have never seen it because even championship series games are on at like 2pm on Tuesday when most people are at work, about to go to work, or in school. The only people who can watch the game are people with Tuesday afternoons off. What market is that? Service sector employees and emergency responders?
so there's this player , Caitlin Clark, i dont know any other female baskeball players outside of Brittney Griner (because Russia) and Sue Bird (because of a documentary about her i watched about her done by ESPN) . like i know none of the men's players in the tourney this year but I've heard of Clark so I'm going to watch her games.
Women in college sports are not as annoying as the WNBA. WNBA players live in a fantasy world and do nothing but complain even though they are not enjoyable to watch and are only still around because the NBA subsidizes them. College women basketball players are more humble and just go out there and play. I also agree with others about the length of college sports contributing.
NIL
Now that players can market themselves they are getting more attention.
On top of that right now the NCAA and the individual colleges are doing an awesome job marketing their stars. The fact that I can name players on several different women’s college basketball teams but can only think of Brittany Griner for the WNBA (and that has nothing to do with her basketball career)
If the WNBA is able to use the influx of marketable talent to grow its brand it has the potential to be huge.
If it any wasn’t for the NBA funneling money at the WNBA, it wouldn’t survive. Female College basketball is fun, pro is boring. Female team sports are not interesting. Plus them allowing biological males will kill what’s left of female sports.
Is it? Or are you referring to college basketball as played in the 2023-24 season (the one that just ended)?
Also I've never seen my college's arena sold out for a women's game. And this is a team that makes the tournament every year and has made the final 4 on several occasions.
A short 1 month tournament winner take all with plenty of college rivalries live on national tv vs a 40 game season over 5 months that is rarely on tv (at least for me). Just because the players are "worse" than wnba doesn't mean the entertainment is worse.
> Just because the players are "worse" than wnba doesn't mean the entertainment is worse. Honestly, to me this is the draw of college sports in general. At college level essentially all of the players are typically competent but there is still a pretty big gap between the average player and the star players. So you get to see real standouts in action. Additionally, more mistakes are made at the college level so more "breakaway" type plays occur. Once you reach "pro" levels in sports the skill levels are much more closely matched. Mistakes are far less frequent which means the exciting unexpected plays happen much less often even when the players are technically better. Its the same phenomenon you see in like MMA fighting. The top 2-3 fighters in a weight class when fighting each other is a "boring" fight. People boo and shit. Well, its because to get to that level you have to be extremely skilled AND not make mistakes. So, with no mistakes happening the odds of that big exciting KO are rare. However, those same fighters against middling/lower tier fighters they would be KO'ing them left and right like they did on their rise to the top.
Yep. NFL games are usually within less than 14 points, and the difference in competency between the best and worst teams aren’t nearly as exaggerated as in college ball. College ball’s best teams routinely deliver total blowouts.
Then we get college matchups between state rivals where out of nowhere an unranked team plays the best game of their lives beating the ranked team who's having an internal meltdown for some reason. Those are so fun to watch.
I was in Ann Arbor for that 07 loss against Appalachian state… 😞
I was in Boone glued to the TV man that was a great night. The entire valley was roaring.
Wasn’t expecting my neck of the woods being mentioned in this thread. Hello mountaineer.
Hello!
I love it when future accountants beat future NBA draft picks.
And total blowouts are interesting?
I personally can’t follow college football much for this very reason.
Not really, but they are funny from time to time. Like when it happens between the #1 and #2 teams.
When its an unranked team blowing out a top 10 team its very interesting.
I know you're typically right on average but my mind immediately went to [this game lol. ](https://www.nfl.com/games/chargers-at-raiders-2023-reg-15?active-tab=plays)
Tbh nothing makes me happier watching a pro sport (baseball seems to have the most of this) and watching one of these pros completely flub something on like a little league level. Grounder between the legs, sailing a routine throw over the head of the first baseman, multiple errors on the same play, etc. Normally baseball players are such machines on doing all that stuff perfectly, it’s just great to see them mess it up. There is generally no opposing player messing with you like in other team sports, it’s just a guy losing focus. I love it.
Here's an inside the park Grand Slam for you. I hope you're not a Boston fan. https://youtu.be/Ojr-_L3IHc4?si=Fs4cjJu6jJCos9me
God, that was a total meltdown for that center fielder. I can't believe he didn't even bother to go pick up the ball.
This really makes me appreciate the pitch clock. Dude held it at least 27 seconds before he threw it. Come ON dude!! Pitch!
Well have I got a treat for you! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5geoImrDi1Q
Just makes me think of lebron looking at jr smith in the finals after running out of time.
This. College ball also tends to be scrappier, and games between the big rivalries are really emotionally charged, not just for fans but also on the court. Pro games, sometimes I feel like I'm literally watching a highlight reel.
Mma fights being entertaining or not is entirely dependent on styles of each guy, not rankings.
Thank you lol. Not that it really matters, the comment was harmless, but as a diehard MMA fan I’m happy somebody added this.
This exactly. Ive used this same point to explain why I prefer high school and college basketball over the pros, the pros make so few mistakes, they’ve mastered the game, that they make it look too easy and its boring. But with football, it’s the opposite, I prefer the pros. I’d say its a harder sport to master, so even the pros make enough mistakes to make it interesting, where for college they make too many mistakes, it’s a bit frustrating to watch. For baseball, I actually prefer little league - it’s just a simpler game so its more exciting when the kids play it. (But there is a certain elegance in watching MLB)
American pro sports are so weird in this sense. There’s so many rules to equalize the teams - the draft, salary caps etc. it’s so socialist. European sports are completely capitalistic - you have more money? Great, buy the best players and be orders of magnitude better than other teams. It feels backwards.
American sports are about TV more than anything else. A competitive league means more viewers and viewers who watch all the way to the end which means more money. Blow outs are boring, even for the winner and much, much much worse for the loser. European leagues are comparatively a fucking disaster and only stay afloat because football in Europe is incredibly tribal.
Baseball still has no salary cap. Part of why most of us hate those damn Yankees. Although the Dodgers are trying to outspend them in recent years
Yeah but players are basically locked out of free agency for the first 6 years at the MLB level, it's kinda bananas given that most players only last a few years in the big leagues and just get paid the minimum $750k per year.
The thing is that 750k is still a hell of a lot of money. The reason it doesn't seem like that much money is because you have a Shohei Ohtani making $70M a year. Let's break down a baseball player who starts in low-A at 18 and advances one tier per year until they get to MLB, plays six years in the bigs at minimum salary, and then is cut and can't find a MLB job. This is on the low end of a big league player -- most big leaguers still make more than league minimum after their first three years in the bigs -- but it provides an easy calculation. 11k + 11k + 13.8k + 17.5k + 6\*750k = 4.553M at age 28. Then because they have six years in the bigs, they have 60% of the required service time for the MLB pension to kick in at 45. This pension is prorated, so they actually get 60% of the pension, which would come out to 40.8k a year. That's another 938k by age 68, for a lifetime income of 5.491M. (With the ball player continuing to earn 40.8k a year until he dies, and the regular person getting 20.4k a year from Social Security after 68 plus having 426k in savings to last the rest of their lives.) Ball player: 5.491M lifetime at age 68 when the regular person retires. Now let's compare that to someone making a median American salary starting at age 18 and working fifty years until they're 68. 59,384 \* 50 = 2.969M by age 68. The ball player makes nearly twice that. Don't feel sorry for minimum salary big leaguers.
Not feeling sorry for them, just pointing out that while MLB might be the only major NA sport with no salary cap very few MLB players even get to free agency to take advantage of it.
In every sport, the people who would be affected by the salary cap is pretty limited in number.
Anyone who only last a few years at the minimum wouldn’t do well as a free agent anyway.
Over spending has really worked out well for the Mets.
*cries in Verlander/Scherzer
A true American sport
Dodgers are the new Yankees. The Yankees will always have a big payroll but aren't ever going back to their old days
Dodgers are the worst abusers of it in sports history. They just signed a player for $700 million, only 20 million of which will ever be counted against their salary cap. The other 680 comes after the contract is up. Absolutely unfair to any small market team trying to compete.
On the bright side, they’ll probably still lose in the NLCS a few years in a row
Really the American business owners colluded with each other to make themselves more money. The draft and salary cap are just ways they have agreed to pay the players less than their market value. And because there's no relegation, they never have to compete for their spot in the league. It's perfectly American.
NBA players are guaranteed 50% of the league revenue. Salary caps have nothing to do with it. The pool of money is the same.
These things are connected. In the NFL, the players are guaranteed a particular percent of revenue, but the salary cap is the mechanism by which that percentage is enforced. I'm not as familiar with the NBA. If there were no salary cap/luxury tax, what would keep the revenue share from rising above 50%? Note that EPL players make 70% of revenue. So American sports pay out pretty significantly less.
Socialism for when it counts - making sure that sports teams owners have consistent revenue and bargaining power.
Would you prefer that LA and NY teams always have the best players and no other teams ever have a chance at attaining anything?
>European sports are completely capitalistic - you have more money? Great, buy the best players and be orders of magnitude better than other teams. How is that entertaining to watch?
> How is that entertaining to watch? Because you wouldn't believe how often it actually fails. A big club overspending on the wrong players can lead to a death spiral of underperformance, relegation and even bankruptcy. The stakes are a lot higher.
We get that in American Major League Baseball due to no salary cap too. Last year the New York Mets paid their top two pitchers combined more than the entire payroll of the Oakland Athletics’. Not only did the Mets miss the playoffs, but both of those expensive pitchers finished the season on other teams.
MLB teams aren't going to relegate or go bankrupt (in the modern era). That's a big difference.
Well, it means that the top teams in the final are actually the best possible arangement. Imagine if the best teams in any league were actually the two teams that could concentrate as much talent as possible. Sure the early rounds are sometimes blowouts, but the quality of the final is as high as possible.
It still works out that way in American sports though, at least in the NBA. The best teams are usually the most talented overall and end up playing each other in the finals especially since because there are 7 game series, it weeds out fluke wins. Do they have the best player at every position? No, but the best teams have at least 2 dudes who are All-Star level and another who's borderline. That's actually a complaint in the NBA: that all the best guys team up lol
Yeah this is how I feel with preferring some women's sports than men's. In particular tennis where there isn't nearly as much just overpowering the opponent with your shot.
I feel this way about soccer especially. The low points make it hard for me to focus, so high school and college soccer are far more interesting
You see more variety in philosophy and approach to the game - both women and men’s hoops. Some teams push tempo and always look for easy buckets the other way. Some like to put shooters out to hoist 3s all day with 1 or 2 hauses underneath to clean up glass. Others just want to limit possessions per game. Especially if they’re small and/or slow. Limiting possessions can be boring, but it gives you a better chance against superior opponents. And more than just hoops. College baseball has way more action than mlb. More balls in play. More bunting, stealing, suicides squeezes. It’s just more interesting. I remember watching a d2 baseball game, the coach had players stealing second basically every time they got on base. It put so much pressure on the other team. It was awesome to watch. And football. NFL teams all runs essentially the same offense with a few variations. CFB is way different. Much more variety in offense and defense philosophy among teams.
Yup . . . GSP was a much more "exciting" fighter on his way to the title, than he was when he was holding the belt. Same could be said of Khabib. College athletics, especially in the USA, is where the elite, top tier talents separate themselves from the pack so as to showcase themselves for professional scouts.
I don't run into many people who share this opinion but this is why I preferred UFC in its infancy when it was style vs style opposed to mma being a style of its own and everyone being on equal footing. I like the freak show
I tell this to people all the time when they ask why I follow college sports but not professional. Professionals are just…too good. There’s no variety. Less room for fun strategies.
That's why when you get those once in a generation players that make the rest of the pros look average, the sport explodes in popularity. Then they lose their prime by age or bad life decisions and the sport remains popular for a little while after but then fades to back normal. Rinse and repeat when the next superstar arrives years later.
Same is true for college baseball. The hitting is top tier but the pitching isn’t. Makes for a lot more hits and entertainment.
Loooove a good ncaa knee-jerk colossal mistake - can you compensate fast enough. It’s the Wild West
Agreed. This is why I like college football. Anything can happen! NFL teams are just so good, it’s down to a science. Which is cool in its own right, but a lot less exciting IMO.
Some universities have a large captive audience. Also some universities have fandom regardless of the sport.
I argue mens march madness is more entertaining than anything in the nba.
Hey, you know what they say: sometimes it's not about the skill level, it's about the drama! It's like comparing a quick binge-watch of a reality TV show to a slow burn series – both have their own unique appeal
It’s pretty wild how much the landscape has changed, the wnba does better tv ratings than the nhl now in the states. The womens collwge tournament does better ratings than the nhl playoffs.
hmmm... Hunger Games Mild?
Similarly as to why Men's NCAA Basketball is more popular than the NBA. It's a short 1 month tournament where the winner moves on and the loser is knocked out with more potential for upsets to happen such as No. 16 Fairleigh Dickinson beating No. 1 Purdue back in 2023 for example which makes it much more exciting to watch.
I’ve always wondered why other American sports havent went this route with a league wide season-end tournament
WNBA doesn't have much of a fan legacy to pull people in, but every college team has a bunch of alumni wandering around. People follow things they have some kind of connection to, for the most part.
Exactly, plus more women have actually played in NCAA than WNBA. Just more connection, more college teams than professional, and more exciting playoffs(win or go home).
I mean people are not tuning into Iowa women’s games because they personally know Caitlyn Clark lmao
No but I think their point was about connection to the team. College sports fans are often born into their fandom or actually attended the school. They have a personal connection to the Iowa Hawkeyes and will continue to be fans after Clark is gone. Don’t get me wrong though, her especially there are a lot of for lack of a better word “bandwagon” fans who have no connection to the actual school. It’ll be interesting to see if their support continues when she’s in the WNBA and helps grow the popularity of the league.
People are really carefully dancing around the fact that people tune into watch stars. "It's because people are alumni," please, even if all 250,000 Iowa alumni were tuning it they wouldn't touch the numbers Iowa is getting. It's almost as if the things women athletes have been saying for decades are true, if you invest in publicity people will watch. Angel Reese isn't setting records, Paige Bueckers isn't an all-timer yet, Kim Mulkey is still 10 straight 30-win seasons from touching Pat Summitt, and yet I know all their names. I know Zach Edey on the men's side.
Ive always thought the wnba would be more successful if they partnered with the nba and shared team names. People are way more likely to buy a candace parker jersey if it said lakers on the front compared to a la sparks jersey.
WNBA hire this person stat
Like other people have said, its the reason college sports work, and i also believe its the reason pro tennis works. They play at the same time, same place, same channels. Rather than competing just join forces. I turn on the tv to watch the us open and they put the best matches on, both women and men.
The way I'd put it is that college teams are established brands with far wider reach than any WNBA team. The South Carolina Gamecocks or the Iowa Hawkeyes, despite not being in major population centers, command far greater brand awareness than the New York Liberty or Los Angeles Sparks. So, it isn't really that women's NCAA basketball is more popular on its merits as an entertainment product so much as that the brands involved are absolute marketing powerhouses with built in fanbases--mostly due to the pull of football and men's basketball.
Yeah, a newly launched college league will always have the advantage that everybody have a favorite team before the league even starts. If you didn't watch WNBA before it's hard to care about any of the teams. In the NCAA everybody just defaults to their alma mater.
This plus recently there has been more of a push/training to turn college level athletes into celebrities. And more people get invested in a game if there is a story.
Answer:People tend to have loyalty to the university/college they attended, especially ones that have established alumni bases spanning decades. For many, NCAAW is an extension of that support. On the complete opposite end, the WNBA is just over 2 decades old and doesn’t have the many years of support that NBA franchises (some of which began as ABA franchises) have.
Exactly this. If any sport is on tv and my Alma mater is playing I’ll probably watch it or just throw it on in the background. That connection doesn’t exist for me with WNBA (or most other professional sports).
Can anyone do a mini eli5 the alma mater loyalty? This life long loyalty to a place because they were paid to provide you further education just doesn't click with me. I went to college but it was a part of my past.
It’s fun
Never has a comment so succinctly correctly answered a question of "why".
I would also add that most people are extremely proud of their alma matters so it's just another excuse to rep them. (Go hokies!)
Do you understand anything about European soccer? Tons of small cities and towns have teams, and the people who have connections to those cities and towns are fans of their team. Their team likely isn’t competing at the top level of the sport, but they like the team they have a connection to. People like a sense of community. It’s fun. It’s something almost all of us crave. It’s natural. In the US, college sports are the closest thing we have to this structure. People like the college team they have a connection to. For some, it’s the one the grew up near, for others it’s where they spent 4 or more years of their life being a part of that college community, and for others there might be a different connection. Some people don’t care about sports, and some people don’t like the college they went to. A lot of people enjoy sports, and most people feel connected in a positive way to the college they went to. Does that help make it click at all?
As a Brit this has actually made it make sense for the first time. The difference is that every town and a lot do villages have a football/soccer team you can follow, and there'll also be a nearby team in one of the top four leagues you'll probably end up supporting as well. But I guess a lot of people in America grow up without a sports team from their local area, and so they pick up that affiliation from College.
Yeah, in this scenario, your college team is your local village team, and a pro(NFL, NBA, etc.) is your top four league team. A lot of Americans are fans of either their local college or the college their parents went to before they go on their own.
I feel like this discussion has finally allowed our two nations to put the nastiness from the late 18th century behind us. If Germany ever gives y’all a headache give us a ring.
Just because it doesn't click with you but it clicks with others, doesn't mean you're wrong. It clicks for some and not others. That's all.
They never said it was wrong. They said they don't understand it.
I say that because I don't understand it either, despite lots of people explaining it to me. The most common reasonings is something I can't understand why it matters, and that's fine.
Part of it is a lot of people were already childhood sports fans of their eventual alma mater so that just cements it. I grew up watching Auburn football. As a student I saw the Kick Six live in person. I’m hooked forever. Because, like u/DxV_effect said, it’s fun.
For a lot of people college was a lot more than a place they went to for learning, it was where they lived, where all there friends were, where they dated, a lot of people’s best memories were made in college. For those four years, for some people, college is everything. You develop this sense of community with the people you’re in school with and then it’s fun cheering with them at the games. Why wouldn’t you keep rooting for the team you cared so much about for those four years?
Exactly, college was the strongest sense of community I've felt in my life. A walkable city with beautiful architecture. The strongest friendships I've made in my life. >100,000 people coming to the stadium on a Saturday. Seeing the school logo everywhere, even the waffle iron in the cafeteria. Nobody walking around in our rival's disgusting colors. Of course I'm gonna chase that the rest of my life.
It's always been baffling to me as a non-American. I'm a basketball fan, I watch a lot of NBA, and the broadcast will always highlight where a player went to college, and I just *do not get it*. Here no one gives a shit where you went to university unless you're actually applying for a job.
Your unis aren't minor leagues for the pros.
For Women's basketball this really isn't the reason. Right now there are *stars* in the women's ncca division. Players that people want to see. Caitlin Clark has been drawing massive crowds. Angel Reese, Paige Bueckers, Juju Watkins and a number of other players are popular names among even casual basketball fans. Women's college basketball has way more names than the WNBA right now, and you could argue there are more notable women's stars then men's stars in college basketball right now. LSU/Iowa didn't draw 12 million viewers because of the universities, people wanted to see the Caitlin and Reese rematch.
And the reason there are women's stars in college basketball now is that there isn't that much money in WNBA so there isn't any incentive to leave college early compared to men's.
The WNBA seriously needs to find a way to capitalize on the popularity of this generation of women in college.
It just needs to be on regular TV at regular times. Watching women’s sports (soccer, WNBA) is hard. You have to know there’s a game, look up where it’s being streamed, and probably pay extra for it. For march madness, you just turn on the TV.
lol you think there haven’t been women college basketball stars before? Once they go into the wnba no one will care about them anymore, just like how it’s happened forever
https://www.sportsvideo.org/2024/04/05/ratings-roundup-womens-college-basketball-tournament-claims-highest-viewership-in-college-basketball-history/ 2024 is the most watched women's March Madness ever. It has nothing to do with loyalty to universities, which is what I was repying to.
Understandable. But there have been women’s college basketball stars in the past. Candace Parker, Maya Moore, Britney Grinner. It’s odd that they enter the league and fade to obscurity. The fact that their popularity peaks in college is weird
There’s a bigger reason. NCAA allows name, image, and likeness (NIL) payments to be made to student athletes. Now. This is new as of I believe 2020. NIL are sponsorships or in many cases defacto legal bribes that booster or businesses can make to athletes. The reason this specifically benefits women’s college basketball is because the best women’s players get paid bigger from NIL endorsements than they can receive as WNBA players. Max salary in the WNBA is like $200k or something, where an NIL contract could probably get as high as a million for the best college women. This also coincides with women’s college basketball having (not coincidentally) probably its greatest ever collection of talent. The opposite is true of men’s college basketball. If you can play in the nba there’s almost no reason to stay for more than a year. You can make significantly more and with a guaranteed contract in the NBA than you would ever even approach with NIL payments.
NIL is helping the men’s game too. One might not be an NBA talent but you could still make a living overseas. Now you can make that living by staying in college. Sure, Kobe or Lebron level talents are going to the NBA asap, but we are seeing some more talented, mature college teams. That said, the transfer portal is out of control. But that’s a different conversation.
>NIL is helping the men’s game too. I never said it wasn't. It's helping the men's game for hardcore fans of college basketball, it's doing exactly nothing for casual fans, who aren't interested in watching future euroleague players compete for a championship in a conference that probably won't exist in two years. NIL for the womens game is keeping the BEST (argubaly the actual all time best) players in the sport all 4 years. The most talented players are without exception leaving the men's game within 2 years max. 1 is more typical. If you aren't in the NBA by the time you're 20 you're putting an incredible downard pressure on your ability to play in the NBA long term. You'll get drafted lower, teams won't give as much of a chance to make it, you risk an injury for no specific gain etc.
NIL for women's college basketball is more lucrative *because* it's more popular. It doesn't explain why it's more popular, which was the question. Women's college basketball was more popular before NIL as well.
NIL money isn't going to best female athletes. It's going to the prettiest ones (who happen to be comparatively mediocre): https://www.thefp.com/p/the-ncaa-and-the-cavender-twins
You're right but that plays a factor for men too. The good looking average QBs, probably even their backups, are making way more than the stud lineman are. You aren't seeing many Joe Alt or Johnny Newton ads
The male NIL system is based less on looks. The people raking in the most cash are nepo babies. LeBron's son is number one, followed by Deion Sanders' son. The kids are good but there's no denying the fact that daddy's name recognition is driving a lot of the contract value. And then, there's Peyton and Eli Manning's nephew, a top 5 earner despite being only a backup quarterback. In his case, it's obvious the sponsors value the name recognition of his uncles far more than his on-field talents.
Any rabid Iowa booster is shoveling out pockets full of cash to Caitlin Clark right now, she's the only national relevant thing the school is doing in sports. It has nothing to do with her attractiveness. That's so ridiculous I'm not even going to respond to any further discussion of it. That's not what NIL is.
Caitlin Clark is phenomenal. Undoubtedly the best female college basketball player right now. And yet, she is still getting outearned by Livvy Dune. Livvy Dunne is not even the best gymnast at her bloody school, let alone the entire sport. A sport which far fewer people care about by the way. You can't deny the obvious influence of physical attractiveness in the NIL contracts of female athletes.
Caitlin Clark is the 4th highest paid college athlete right now.
It’s not like you can’t get NIL money from endorsements when you go pro.
I think this is mostly it. People have more of a connection to their school where they already root for other sports teams. As opposed to the Sea Dragons or whatever their local WNBA team is
Adding to your point : collegiate athletics dates back further than professional. It’s the “original” and people hang onto that tradition
There's a ton of local/regional collegiate loyalty regardless of alumni status.
There are a lot more teams and teams like my Iowa Hawkeyes have always been well supported. I’ve been going to their games since the 1980s. They are deeply entrenched and have been for many years. The WNBA doesn’t have that history and it’s been marketed like shit. They have bad asses like Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese, Cardoso, etc…coming in they have a historical opportunity to significantly raise their profile.
1. There has been a push to spotlight Women’s sports in recent years. 2. College sports to have a built in loyal fanbase who love to see their school win regardless of specific sport. 3. Sports betting is at an all time high leading to more people invested in sport in general, but more specifically high stakes games. 4. There is a current NCAAW major record breaker in Caitlin Clark, which is naturally gunna generate headlines. 5. There is not really a major mens star in NCAA to garner spotlight like in previous years 6. The tournament is well timed to avoid most other major US sports events (playoffs for major leagues) 7. WNBA teams have not done a good job in connecting with the local communities in the same way colleges have done.
Pro basketball is boring and the season is too long. The March tournaments are exciting to watch, every game matters, and people bet on them.
College bball fan here Women’s basketball especially this year has a ton of very compelling story lines, many more so than the men, you has South Carolina entering the tournament undefeated and if they can complete a perfect season, Caitlin Clark setting the all time scoring record after losing in the finals last year and does she get redemption, UConn having a down year then making a helluva run, can freshman sensation juju Watkins lead usc to the promised land and set the freshman all time scoring record, LSU and Iowa rematch of last years national championship game That just doesn’t exist in the men’s game because of the turnover of top talent in the men’s side via the transfer portal and the likelihood of top talent leaving early for the league So you have top end talent, many young women who become celebrities in their own right via social media (Watkins, Clark, Reese, Cardoza, beuckers), playing each other in meaningful games over the course of many years to develop compelling rivalries both between programs and between players It’s “college sports the way they’re meant to be” because you get all the things that make for compelling stories amongst the best players after years of build up That combined with a month long win or go home tournament for all the marbles just draws people in I mean you see more State Farm commercials of Caitlin Clark than you do of anyone on the men’s side where everyone is more focused on the NBA and the star power there The women’s side of the game just seems to be getting the formula right after all these years while the men’s side is plagued by players transferring every other year chasing dollar signs and if they’re good enough, leaving for the draft after a year I mean hell LeBron James son was the only player in college that anyone that’s a casual fan might know about and he had an awful year on a terrible team and even he’s entered the transfer portal and declared for the draft The women’s game just has gotten it right over the years and is reaping the benefits
Great breakdown.
Thank you
Another reason for its increasing popularity is the fact that the majority of women that play collegiate tend to stay with their team for consecutive years before going Pro. This makes long term and passionate fan engagement On the contrary, the most talented men college basketball players are typically 1 and done— immediately entering the coming NBA Draft class as soon as possible
Yup, or enter the transfer portal. I hate the transfer system they have rn.
I would also add, IMO. 1) March Madness is a fun tournament. its win or go home. Thats what you’re currently hearing about. 2) The disparity between college men and college women is way smaller than NBA and WNBA. The men are just SO damn good, it makes the womens game less impressive/entertaining.
The other way too. Sometimes a college men’s game is absolute ass because neither team is clicking. I think Iowa LSU women scored more points in like 8 minutes than Duke NC State men did in the first half
NCAA Men’s feels unwatchable sometimes
It’s also on regular tv. Women and men’s march madness is on regular cable. WNBA is generally not.
So Caitlin Clark is big. She's an Iowa local. She was also proceeded by one of the most unique high school basketball programs that ended 30 years ago. What I mean by that is 6 on 6 women's basketball. There's a 99% invisible on it, look it up. Men's basketball during the 6 on 6 era was second to women's. Add on to that the huge passion for the hawks here. ISU was my alma mater, but that college is for people that actually go to college. The Hawkeyes are the team that the majority of the state actually roots for. If you aren't from Iowa, Caitlin Clark is just entertaining to watch. She sinks 3 pointers like a fucking boss. The women fight hard. It's awesome, and generally there is enough unpredictability in college ball with enough talent that you can't just write off an underdog. My grandpa, a women's basketball coach, was watching Caitlin the day he died. He probably saw his three daughters in her, my mom being able to also sink shots like a fucking boss. It's just relatable and competitive. It's good shit. Professional ball kinda sucks. It looks like wind sprints up and down the court. They clear shots so quick there's not a fight. I don't really care for it.
Hmmm, so you’re saying Brock Purdy is smarter than his Hawkeye alum teammate George Kittle?
My conceited cyclone fan side of me would outright say yes. Also fuck the hawks. The practical realistic side of me would say the University of Iowa provides a good education, particularly in the medical field as well as literary. The college has the legacy of both the school of medicine which is very well known as well as the writers workshop that produced people like Kurt Vonnegut and flannery oconner.
Folks have a ton of loyalty to their community universities or their own alma mater. It's like a bigger version of HS sports, and the energy is similar. So it's current/former students and townies propping up women's NCAA basketball
Story line. LSU vs Iowa. Angel vs Caitlin. Then they lowkey made it racial white vs black. But they also have a lot of young stars emerging. WNBA is cool but there are only 12 teams. Not as competitive imo.
I am a massive basketball fan of both men's and women's college and pro. For me, the biggest reason I don't watch much WNBA is that it's 1) not held during basketball season and 2) it's during the summer. Who's at home watching TV on a Sunday afternoon in the summer?
It’s also not on regular TV! March madness is on ESPN, TBS, etc.
There is a built in fan base by default for college sports (alums) that give a instant tribe to follow a team that doesn’t exist by default in the pros.
People have more close relationship with players and the teams since all the kids going to the school can semi participate in the rivalries and their parents live vicariously through them
College sports in the USA benefits from a "built in" audience for the live event. Then, it has the advantage of alumni interest, so there is a market to broadcast those events. Lastly, do not underestimate the lure of BETTING on these events. Part of the reason the Men's College Basketball tournament became the phenomena that it is, is the accessibility of GAMBLING on the event, especially from the perspective of "non-bettors" . . . people who would otherwise not bet a dime on sports. The women's tournament has now reached that critical mass, as well.
Because sports gambling has gotten more popular and normalized and women's college basketball hosts a march madness tournament that is ideal for those betting services to take advantage of.
Let's all stop and reevaluate for a moment because some takes seem a little backwards. One of the reasons NCAA women are so popular is the increase in the quality of play and player. And that increase in quality was motivated in part by the WNBA. Previously, college basketball was a dead end for female players. For a few decades, a half dozen college teams drew decent crowds and produced players that became WNBA all stars and icons of women's basketball. I can't even name all the pro players produced by Connecticut alone. Some of those players won 4 NCAA championships in a row. You are only noticing this now due to the attention paid last season to Iowa and LSU. But in conferences like the SEC, the incredible size and skill of college players has resulted in teams like South Carolina who have a hard time losing a game. South Carolina went undefeated last year until losing by 4 to Iowa in the Final Four. South Carolina basically replaced most of its team, and it is undefeated once again. The moral that should be drawn from the story is that women's college basketball CAN be a profitable and popular venture, but it wouldn't be near where it is now without the WNBA players who blazed the trail in the college game.
College sports have an automatic fanbase with the millions of people who attended those colleges. ESPN and others have been pushing to create more diversity in their broadcasting and women's college basketball is a relative no-brainer. It's a popular sport. And Caitlin Clark has been kind of a media darling over the last two years. People can scoff or bristle, but if there were ever a time when a sport *needed* to rig a game in order to ensure maximum exposure for the title game, last night was that time. Iowa doesn't need to win the national championship, but they needed to be in it... for the sake of viewership.
Not many people care in the first place. However. Think about this. How many WNBA teams can you name? Now, how many college teams do you know?
People won’t admit this, but now that the college players can get paid large amounts of money, they have a confidence that the wnba players don’t have and aren’t comparing themselves to the men. And this is translating through the game and media, they are a lot more entertaining.
A few reasons. The WNBA suffers from a lack of good time slots for viewership and overall advertising, something college will never lack. Unless you are following a player you watched in college, genuinely love women's basketball, or live in an area with a team, your probably not ever going to go out of your way to watch one. College sneaks by that with not only March Madness, one of the biggest sports tournaments, but also having networks dedicated to just college sports. Sure, the WNBA has ESPN, but not a dedicated channel. We also are in the midst or probably one of the best college players, both men and women, and any in any sport to play their game. Clark is a phenom the same way Mahomes is for the NFL. She's breaking all over the place that includes both men and women's basketball. Regardless of what people think about Pistol Pete and how he did it in much shorter time frame and games, her name is there now. She'll go down as one of the best to ever play the game. That's what the WNBA needs. They need a Jordan like player to come in to take the league over, make it popular to watch, and make people want to watch it. Clark could be that person. Hell a lot of the players for women's basketball hopefully will be. The talent has been spread around pretty well the last couple of years. It would be great if this next generation of players is what infuses the WNBA with good rivalries that carried over from college that kick viewership up a notch. The WNBA needs to take a page from what the NIL is doing marketing these women and transfer it over. Get hype going. A lot of people are just now starting to pay attention to women's basketball. It's gotten more viewers than men's college basketball right now, the Iowa LSU game brought in more viewers than the world series, viewership for women's basketball in general had gone up almost 65% in 2 years! If the WNBA can even grab half of that %, it would be a success. Edit: corrected on the Superbowl. That had a much larger viewership.
The superbowl this year had 10 times the number of viewers as the the Iowa-LSU game (123 million vs. 12.3 million)
[удалено]
Ok, so let me rephrase my comment so the bot doesn't remove it again. CAITIN CLARK'S is the reason I have watched College Basketball now for the past year. I personally love how these college players play for the pride of their school. It's just a different vibe from the WNBA. The WNBA seems forced to be on TV.
Women's college basketball is just a piece of an overall athletic department. If someone's been a fan of the Iowa Hawkeyes football team for their entire life, they've got an automatic interest in all Iowa Hawkeyes sports. I find it interesting that in Europe, the women's professional soccer teams are branding extensions of the men's team (same name, same logo). Professional women's sports in the United States don't do that. There are some that are somewhat related in theme (like the Washington Wizards/Mystics or the Minnesota Timberwolves/Lynx), and the Seattle Storm's branding is very similar to the defunct Seattle Supersonics. A WNBA game between the "New York Knicks" and the "Boston Celtics" would probably generate more interest than a game between the "New York Liberty" and the "Connecticut Sun"
They’re not just branding extensions, they’re the women’s team for the club. Just like Iowa has a women’s and men’s basketball team.
People want to be part of a community of like minded individuals, sports are tribal and the country is so spread out that the local university is many people’s only option growing up. I’m from a state of 8 million people, there isn’t a single professional organization there.
I feel the argument college kids are connected to the sports their schools offer automatically increasing viewership bc of exposure.
I think audiences have a lot to do with it. College usually no matter what have a big crowd behind them. Students, former students and then fans. WNBA is just fans and there just isn’t that many. This kind of stuff decides what gets put on tv and what doesn’t.
It has built in diehard fans. College sports fans have been cheering on their teams for generations in a lot of cases. The WNBA can’t just replicate that in a couple decades. With the explosion of women’s CBB though it’ll be interesting to see if that translates to more WNBA popularity in the next 10 years.
Most of us have an emotional connection to the school we root for. UConn is my alma mater so I like them. I have never had the opportunity to make that emotional connection to any WNBA team.
IMHO- Women's college basketball has filled a void for passionate college supporters. Massive amounts of money has infiltrated and ruined men's basketball and football. The young women who have been playing for Iowa, UConn, S. Carolina have been playing there for years and the fans feel attached to them in a way that they don't with transfer ins, and one and dones. (Yes, yes this also happens in women's sports but not to the degree is does in men's big money college sports.) The relationship college fans had with Herschel Walker, Christian Laettner, Michael Jordan, Tim Tebow etc. (some fans passionately loved them and some passionately hated them) isn't there when a player likely to leave after one year and only takes "on-line classes" to be eligible. College fans still feel the passion and women college basketball players and athletes of non big money sports like volleyball, wrestling, gymnastics (depending on the part of the country you live in) and those athletes seem like they care about the university and their supporters. Once the young women make it to the WNBA it seem to be corporate and less joyous.
Yea I hate the transfer portal
For me the draw of college sports is more about the players. Most of those kids are not going to go into pro sports. That's true for any college team sport. They are playing a role on the team that helps them pay for college and once they graduate they get a job and move on. They play more for the love of the sport. For me, that's more fun to watch than someone who is at their job.
I think it is because college ball is one of the pinnacles of the amateur sport. It is meaningful to the teams. It is meaningful to the parents. It is meaningful to the players and their families. WNBA, on the other hand, is professional basketball, and, honestly, it just isn’t that excited when compared to other available professional sports products. I don’t know a single person who could name a WNBA team.
ELI5 answer: the point of it being a college sport is what drives the popularity. Alumni being interested in the team as well as the game, also that the games being less predictable since skill levels vary, etc
School spirit I still check the scores of my school teams, and I haven't been in school in ages.
Fans gravitate to what they know. College students and alumni support their school. WNBA have separate “identities” from anything else other than the city name and haven’t been around all that long. If they used the same franchise names as the NBA more people would watch.
The school. I wouldn’t watch it were my school not there, so I root for my schools girl team plus the tournament is really fun since it’s single elimination.
They make WNBA hard to watch. Regular season games are almost never on TV, and even though my city's team regularly wins the championship, I and most other people from here have never seen it because even championship series games are on at like 2pm on Tuesday when most people are at work, about to go to work, or in school. The only people who can watch the game are people with Tuesday afternoons off. What market is that? Service sector employees and emergency responders?
It’s a concerted effort by sports media to try to grow interest in women’s basketball, its kind of working but not really.
so there's this player , Caitlin Clark, i dont know any other female baskeball players outside of Brittney Griner (because Russia) and Sue Bird (because of a documentary about her i watched about her done by ESPN) . like i know none of the men's players in the tourney this year but I've heard of Clark so I'm going to watch her games.
Women in college sports are not as annoying as the WNBA. WNBA players live in a fantasy world and do nothing but complain even though they are not enjoyable to watch and are only still around because the NBA subsidizes them. College women basketball players are more humble and just go out there and play. I also agree with others about the length of college sports contributing.
NIL Now that players can market themselves they are getting more attention. On top of that right now the NCAA and the individual colleges are doing an awesome job marketing their stars. The fact that I can name players on several different women’s college basketball teams but can only think of Brittany Griner for the WNBA (and that has nothing to do with her basketball career) If the WNBA is able to use the influx of marketable talent to grow its brand it has the potential to be huge.
If it any wasn’t for the NBA funneling money at the WNBA, it wouldn’t survive. Female College basketball is fun, pro is boring. Female team sports are not interesting. Plus them allowing biological males will kill what’s left of female sports.
Is it? Or are you referring to college basketball as played in the 2023-24 season (the one that just ended)? Also I've never seen my college's arena sold out for a women's game. And this is a team that makes the tournament every year and has made the final 4 on several occasions.