Two dynasties and two legendary coaches are on a collision course again! UConn is favored to end its nine-year title drought, while South Carolina is an underdog to earn the program’s first back-to-back championships. But Geno Auriemma and Dawn Staley put their rivalry aside for one thing before the final, and that is for the development of women’s basketball. The ask was pretty simple.

With a contract through 2032, Paramount Global and Warner Bros. Discovery pay $891 million annually for the broadcast rights. So, both coaches in the national championship are pushing for a Women’s March Madness standalone TV deal. Yes, a standalone deal, for which Dawn Staley stated: “We need our own television deal so we can understand what our worth is.” Expressing and questioning that same idea of worth to the broadcaster was the Huskies’ head coach, Geno Auriemma: “Can we completely separate ourselves and say: What are we worth to you?”

As per FOS, the NCAA extended its rights package with ESPN in January 2024. The current will be an eight-year, $920 million contract for 40 NCAA championships for an average annual value of $115 million. In good news, the women’s basketball tournament was the star of a deal worth $65 million, about 56.5% of the whole contract. But apparently the money is still less than the market offer.

A third-party study conducted in 2021 concluded that, by this year, the NCAA could have fetched around $81 million to $112 million if the women’s tournament were to have an independent deal. Auriemma even suggested looking for different partners if it meant getting a better deal.

Not the first time Dawn Staley asked for more

“It may be somebody else cause there’s so many more choices,” the UConn coach said. But it is ESPN that has owned the rights to the women’s tournament since 1996. The 2023 edition of the women’s tournament saw an increase in viewership. And this was not only in the first round but second as well. In the historic season, the second round had a 30% increase in viewership, with an average of 615,000 viewers. Meanwhile, the first round saw a 28% increase, with an average of 391,000.

“It should happen,” Dawn Staley said in 2023, emphasizing removing women’s basketball from the NCAA bundle. “We’re at that place where we’re in high demand. I do believe women’s basketball can stand on its own and be a huge revenue-producing sport that could do, to a certain extent, what men’s basketball has done for all those other sports, all those other Olympic sports and women’s basketball. I do believe we’re at that place now.”

But NCAA president Charlie Baker explained why the decision was made. In 2024, he explained that with declining ad sales and streaming platforms grappling with subscriber churn, it was a cash-strapped environment. So, the decision favored ESPN, which was willing to offer $115 million annually. That was secure offer that other bidders couldn’t match. Let’s not forget, Disney, ESPN’s parent, reported a $1.5 billion streaming loss in 2023.

However, FOS reported that Dawn Staley and Geno Auriemma’s plea won’t be acted on soon. The first year of the eight-year deal was this year. Still, that doesn’t mean two of the most respected coaches turn a blind eye to the current situation. Only time will tell if the concerns from the coaches are heard and if any changes actually come up.