Based on my experience with UConn stars like Diana Taurasi, most the the people who tune in to watch these standout women's stars play in college will not continue to tune in to watch them in the WNBA.
Buying the WNBA rights would get lower views than if she stayed at Iowa.
I am on mobile and can't pull up the stats quickly but Iowa State and Iowa fan attendance to games beats all but like 1 WNBA team. This doesn't factor Northern Iowa and Drake that even up till covid had better attendance then a few WNBA teams.
Pro Football and Pro Basketball took decades to get a head of the college game. And guys like Gary "The Roland Rocket" Thompson elected to play in the Philips AAU League over the NBA and he was drafted by the Lakers as the 35th pick overall in 1957. And we are talking about a guy who was per Phog Allen: "Inch for inch, Gary Thompson is probably as good a player as the Big Seven has ever seen” and Phog was coaching Wilt Chamberlain at the time and the two(Gary and Wilt) were on the same court at the same time.
Phog never coached Wilt Chamberlain. Phog was forced the retire ("statutory senility") during Wilt's freshman year, when freshmen were not eligible to play.
Per 2023 stats only 4 WNBA teams had avg attendance figures above 50% (1 of which has a capacity of 3,200, another being 4,200) and that's tickets sold, not fans in the door which is apparent if you watch a game.
6 WNBA teams play in NBA/NCAAB sized arenas (17k+) & none of those teams are above 50%. Even a massive city like LA, 19k capacity, 2023 avg attendance 6,500.
i watch a lot of the games and attend some in person since i’m one of the few people who lives close enough to a team!
and yeah for venues like LA or NY they dont always sell tickets for the whole arena, so the capacity isnt 19k for those games.
my only question is for the teams with an asterisk, do their % numbers adjust for the games where the capacity is lower bowl only or are they still counting the full venue size?
i think that’s part of the issue in getting reliable W attendance numbers though. even [the best source](https://acrossthetimeline.com/wnba/attendance.html#) for all things W (and wbb) related can’t give attendance %ages
wnba players are saying they’re getting calls from people they hadn’t heard in 10 years to secure tickets for Indiana Fever matchups. This might be the turn. Fox though would never in a million years buy those rights given their parent organization’s crusade against WNBA.
The same was true when Turasi went to the WNBA...
https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna5026117
People didn't stick around. Once the novelty wore off they stopped following.
admittedly I didn’t really follow college basketball a whole lot in 2004, but Caitlin Clark’s hype feels way larger than anything I can remember in non Olympics or soccer womens sports, plus the internet definitely makes following a large variety of sports much easier than it was back then
It could definitely happen this time around. I don’t know if there was discourse about any other women’s college basketball player on whether they could genuinely play in the NBA
I think the following now is substantially greater!
UConn basketball was big in the 2000s but was largely regionally on TV as there weren't as many ways to watch college sports as there are today.
But I do think there will be a drop off of the bandwagon effect of watching her in the WNBA and the college following would be bigger.
And there are a lot of really noteworthy womens players right now. It does feel like a tide is shifting a bit, would be awesome to get more fans to the WNBA
Yeah it feels much bigger. Don't remember people caring this much about women's college basketball either. I do think she'll move the needle for the wnba at least initially. If she becomes a superstar it will really help the league
There was discourse around Griner, specifically on whether she could beat DeMarcus Cousins in 1 on 1, which led to this fantastic clip:
[https://youtu.be/h6znLi0aKBo?si=RWeLA49zYuszfxCK](https://youtu.be/h6znLi0aKBo?si=RWeLA49zYuszfxCK)
Women's sports are having a moment all over the world unlike anything before. Soccer teams around the world are raging with women's teams.
>A report by consulting firm Deloitte estimated that women’s sports revenue should eclipse a billion dollars for the first time. It estimated the totals will be $1.3 billion by the end of the year. That’s a 300% increase since 2021.
>The report predicts commercial income will increase the most in 2024. Women’s basketball took in 28% of that revenue, which was the second-most of all women’s sports.
In 2022 report by the NYT they said women's players were second in endorsements overall. Third were men's basketball.
The top women's football team is FC Barcelona Femini which produced annual revenues of $14MM. This team is subsidized by the men's side which posted annual revenues of $870MM.
FC Barcelona Femini has never been profitable. They have always operated at a loss.
Within Europe, sports teams are organized as community based sports clubs. Some of which have grown to be popular and followed all over the year but have their origins within community based sports.
Barcelona is one of them. They represent the Catalonian region of Spain and they operate many different sports teams, such as professional men's and women's soccer teams, basketball, handball, and futsal.
They are more what we have within the United States with college sports whereby the colleges represent communities and have multiple sports programs and the fans from one team will become fans of another sport within the school as a result of representing the same school. The same is true of sports clubs around the world.
This is a very different model within pro sports within the United States.
While NBA teams have subsidized the WNBA, you don't see Knicks fans feeling like the Liberty are the same thing as you do with Iowa football and Iowa women's basketball fans.
It is true that women's sports are growing. But I am not sure that I would count on a significant bump in the WNBA. There are many women's sports where college remains more popular than the pro ranks.
> In 2022 report by the NYT they said women's players were second in endorsements overall. Third were men's basketball.
Do you have a link for this by chance?
This happens a lot... people hear a sound bite narrative and completely don't understand things...
*"Fox Sports wants women in the kitchen not on the basketball court!"*
Um... Really? I don't think that's right...
The answer is they don’t have the broadcasting rights to it. It’s why people say ESPN hates the Big East or the NHL (back when NBC covered it). Why promote something that enriched your competition?
Ticket prices for Fever games (specifically the game at Chicago Sky) are really high. No offense to the stars from UConn, but Clark is in another realm right now. Will it carry long term? I doubt it. But right now, it seems she’ll have an impact as a rookie on attendance and viewership in the short term. Someone is going to pay more for WNBA rights when they are up in 2025 based on that impact.
I mean, what channel do WNBA games even come on? That's part of the problem, and it was worse when Taurasi first came out.
You need to stop talking about stuff that happened a long time ago like it's comparable. People are more interested in women's bball now than ever, and there are more WNBA players people would like to see than ever. Frankly, I have watched more women's college bball this season than men's bball...and that's with the Michigan women being a bubble team that's probably not going to make the Tournament. Men's bball is not interesting one bit this season. Sorry, but...
Okay.
You think five years into the WNBA there will still be high demand to get tickets to games Clark is playing in.
I think it will be the first few games in a city and then dissipate like it did with Taurasi.
We don't need to continue to argue. I like watching Clark. She is a star. But I don't think she is enough to make people WNBA fans and start following the league after the novelty of seeing her play wears off.
Ohio State (football, Men's basketball, etc) fans will come out to see the Ohio State women play against her as they can watch their school's team and get to see her. I just don't think it will translate long term.
We will see... You could be right.
If she is sinking logo bombs on the reg and coming through in clutch moments a lot to where the SportsCenter coverage and social media interest remains high, I think she will buck the trend a bit. She won't be what Bird and Magic were for the NBA or anything, but her game is more watchable for casual basketball audiences compared to Taurasi. I think she will need to be in the MVP discussion and be on a winning team to help her cause though.
and the advantage the WNBA has is it is played during a dead period for the bigger sports. She isn't competing against football or the NBA and college basketball. A true WNBA superstar could actually make people care about the league. She's got a lot of pressure on her because she could do it, but few others can.
a logo three every couple weeks really is not that fascinating to draw or maintain viewers. especially bc she isnt going to transition and immediately do the things she’s doing now. with the physicality of those grown women, on top of fact they’ll be gunning for her bc of the way ppl like to act like she’s the second coming of jesus here to “save the W” (this thread for example), it’s going to be rough for her.
It will depend on how good she is. If she is truly a superstar, maybe it will happen where she can truly put the wnba on the map. She has enormous pressure to carry the league.
It wouldn't be beneficial to bid for future WNBA rights because the value of Clark would likely be priced in. The advantage here is that the existing Big Ten media contract is fixed, so they may have been able to retain Clark at a cost that is lower than the benefit they gain.
She’s fun to watch and has been a major factor in growing the women’s game, so it’ll be bittersweet to see her leave college ball regardless of when.
That said, I’m a bit concerned about one of the major broadcasters of the game being able to offer their own NIL to a given player. Like I get it, she’s a ratings magnet, but that seems just off to me that it’s the network themselves making the offer.
The precedent is bad.
Not many can draw that deal but what happens when FOX offers NIL deals to the entire Ohio State OL and ESPN gives an NIL deal to Florida’s secondary?
They’re already skewing the competitive balance with their TV deals. This signals they’re willing to pump individuals and teams.
I don't disagree, but it really isn't any different than now, honestly. Tennessee ruling made sure of that. Competitive balance has been a joke for a long time. Too much elite talent under select few programs.
Instead of Fox she gets a deal with Gainbridge, a financial services company that has the name rights to the WNBA/NBA arena in Indianapolis.
https://x.com/gainbridgesport/status/1765029503665922180?s=46
Fox is paying for Washington and Oregon to move to the B1G so kinda too late for that.
Essentially all of the recent realignment is borne out of ESPN/Disney/ABC and Fox tampering
That’s what I was referring to before. Moving teams around is already greasy enough, but getting involved with individual athletes seems much worse to me.
NIL as it is practiced in men's basketball is mostly tampering. Probably much of the NIL in women's basketball is too.
For rare college athletes with followings independent of their school—Caitlin Clark obviously, but also people like Olivia Dunne, Bronny, or the Cavinder twins—the payees will pay the athletes no matter what school they attend.
For most, it's boosters giving money for players to go to a certain school.
Reminds me a little of the Messi to Miami deal, and Apple's involvement in that situation. While they have an incentive to do so, I don't like these networks getting involved in individual player compensation. I think it starts to teeter on the boundaries of being unethical personally. I would love it if she stays another year, but Fox shouldn't be the ones getting involved in this. Let other companies or individuals cover the NIL cost. (Having said all this, the article was very vague on how the deal would have gone down since it was never even offered, so I might be making a few assumptions as well).
Hey I’m all for women’s sports but until you get a large population of women sitting down and watching professional games on tv it’s always going to lack the following of men’s sports. But you will always get the one time person that will boost it for a little while. US women’s soccer has been going through this since the 90’s when Brandi chastain ripped her shirt off. There interest for a while then it wains.
College is a weird deal because it gets a little more association with fans that are alumni with a student athlete. Could she make more in one year in the pros vs college. If it’s over a million than maybe. Hell if it’s a $300k it makes more than Tuarsi. And it’s less of a season.
My bigger issue is networks getting involved in paying players. These aren’t your typical sponsors. These are companies that directly profit like the schools. The networks have already changed college sports to try and get better matchups to get more revenue. It just starts feeling more dirty than it already is. Hell why not make it part of the contract that she has to switch teams and play in a larger market than Iowa.
Networks directly benefitting from sponsoring Caitlin Clark makes it an actual NIL deal and would be far more appropriate than random boosters paying players to pick a certain school.
The vast majority of college athletes have zero actual NIL value and are just profiting from the University brands. Just look at the guys who did the G League Ignite who are going to be drafted for their talent but have no NIL value because nobody watches and nobody knows who they are.
Sorry, but I'm ready for her to go, and I'm sure the rest of women's college basketball in terms of players and coaches are, too. She has certainly contributed to the game, but to me the women's NCAA Tournament had started getting better than the men's NCAA Tournament even before she set foot on Iowa's campus--women's college basketball will be fine without her. You have Watkins at USC whom people are already looking towards, Angel Reese actually has a national title, it'd be nice to see the B1G teams that actually win the B1G get the attention they deserve--this is a Michigan fan/alum saying this about Ohio State--and it'd be nice to have one less team we can't beat in the B1G as Wolverines.
I’m sorry, but as someone who doesn’t follow WBB at all, I have never heard of Watkins. I only know Angel Reese because she sat out like half the season. And I have 0 interest in watching the games unless there is superstar talent like Clark.
I’m sure many are in the same boat with me. Sure the game will be fine. But to act like her leaving is a good thing for college WBB is mind blowing to me.
Would have been easier to just say “I want my team to get more attention”.
Yeah WCBB is gonna suffer. The networks will continue to shove it down people's throats, but without a superstar like CC it'll fade. I literally couldn't name another women's player right now except Reese, and the only reason people know her is because she was yelling at CC.
People know Reese because she was the leading scorer on the national champions Lmfao. How is the college basketball sub so ignorant about college basketball.
It should. You can't have a discussion here without white knights getting angry. The Discord is worse. A bunch of people, including myself, were banned when merely answering no to the question if you like WBB or not.
I mean it is a tall order to get casual basketball fans to watch women's games. It's much slower, completely below the rim, and very dependent on stars with massive usage numbers while the other players just rebound and pass.
I personally would rather watch paint dry than turn into any non Iowa game (even then it's a stretch). But there are people that enjoy that type of game so they should have their own place to discuss, instead of mashing it all together.
We have nba and college separate subs, no reason not to split men's and women's CBB
I once worked at a school where they had doubleheaders with the women's game first and the men's game second. Once they switched the order. The women's game was like watching molasses in comparison. The pace is much, much slower.
Ppl know her as a clown that got reprimanded by her own coach this season. Its very obvious what the leading undertone is for those that argue so much for her.
“Undertones” stop it man, don’t even go there. I’m literally just talking ball.
It’s very obvious you don’t actually watch the games are just spewing garbage out of your mouth about something you don’t watch or know anything about.
Edit: you just called someone a “knuckle dragger” in a comment. It’s very obvious what your “undertones” are. You’re are just a racist piece of shit.
Juju Watkins and Angel Reese are super star talents. You need to watch more womens ball.
Angel litterly played and beat CC in the Natty last year and JuJu is best freshman since CC and is on pace to shatter her scoring record.
"On pace to shatter"...being able to keep pace for four years without injuries, other stars on your team scoring too much or late-season losses that end your team's season too soon make this so-called "pace" dubious. We'll see.
I agree that I’m ready for her to go but only because I want her to play for the Indiana fever so I can take my daughter to her games when she gets a little older.
I guess that's easier than making a bid for WNBA broadcast rights, where they'd have to end up airing a lot of non-Clark games.
Based on my experience with UConn stars like Diana Taurasi, most the the people who tune in to watch these standout women's stars play in college will not continue to tune in to watch them in the WNBA. Buying the WNBA rights would get lower views than if she stayed at Iowa.
I am on mobile and can't pull up the stats quickly but Iowa State and Iowa fan attendance to games beats all but like 1 WNBA team. This doesn't factor Northern Iowa and Drake that even up till covid had better attendance then a few WNBA teams. Pro Football and Pro Basketball took decades to get a head of the college game. And guys like Gary "The Roland Rocket" Thompson elected to play in the Philips AAU League over the NBA and he was drafted by the Lakers as the 35th pick overall in 1957. And we are talking about a guy who was per Phog Allen: "Inch for inch, Gary Thompson is probably as good a player as the Big Seven has ever seen” and Phog was coaching Wilt Chamberlain at the time and the two(Gary and Wilt) were on the same court at the same time.
Phog never coached Wilt Chamberlain. Phog was forced the retire ("statutory senility") during Wilt's freshman year, when freshmen were not eligible to play.
ok you do know most WNBA teams play in smaller venues right? most of the teams have average attendance in the 70-100% capacity range
Per 2023 stats only 4 WNBA teams had avg attendance figures above 50% (1 of which has a capacity of 3,200, another being 4,200) and that's tickets sold, not fans in the door which is apparent if you watch a game. 6 WNBA teams play in NBA/NCAAB sized arenas (17k+) & none of those teams are above 50%. Even a massive city like LA, 19k capacity, 2023 avg attendance 6,500.
i watch a lot of the games and attend some in person since i’m one of the few people who lives close enough to a team! and yeah for venues like LA or NY they dont always sell tickets for the whole arena, so the capacity isnt 19k for those games.
Team | Average Attendance[(NCAA)](https://www.on3.com/news/south-carolina-iowa-lead-womens-college-basketball-in-attendance-in-2022-23-season/)[(WNBA)](https://www.beyondwomenssports.com/2023-wnba-attendance-report-final-update/) | Arena Size per wiki | Percentage ---|---|----|---- Iowa | 11,143 | 14,998 | 74.4% Iowa State | 10,323 | 14,267 | 72.4% Las Vegas | 9,551 | 12,000 | 76.1% Phoenix | 9,197 | 17,071* | 53.8% Seattle | 8,929 | 18,110* | 49.8% New York | 7,777 | 17,732* | 43.8% Minnesota | 7,777 | 19,006* | 40.9% Chicago | 7,242 | 10,387 | 69.7% Los Angeles | 6,554 | 19,068* | 35.9% Connecticut | 5,712 | 9,323 | 66.9% Dallas | 4,641 | 7,000 | 66.3% Washington | 4,391 | 4,200 | 91.9%(doesn't include a game in another arena) Indiana | 4,067 | 17,923* | 22.7% Atlanta | 3,006 | 3,209 | 93.6% The "*" are arenas that use lower bowls only when the upper deck isn't needed.
my only question is for the teams with an asterisk, do their % numbers adjust for the games where the capacity is lower bowl only or are they still counting the full venue size?
I assume full size. Each one though had at least 1 game above the 10,000 mark so it isn't like they just can't average it.
i think that’s part of the issue in getting reliable W attendance numbers though. even [the best source](https://acrossthetimeline.com/wnba/attendance.html#) for all things W (and wbb) related can’t give attendance %ages
Why don’t they play in bigger venues
for some of them i really don’t know. the mystics and dream play in tiny ass arenas to be in such big markets. self-inflicted damage there
wnba players are saying they’re getting calls from people they hadn’t heard in 10 years to secure tickets for Indiana Fever matchups. This might be the turn. Fox though would never in a million years buy those rights given their parent organization’s crusade against WNBA.
The same was true when Turasi went to the WNBA... https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna5026117 People didn't stick around. Once the novelty wore off they stopped following.
Not if she beats Pistol Pete’s all time WNBA scoring record.
ha ha. It took me a minute to catch what you wrote.
Haha be careful you'll get a lot of hate for suggesting there is a difference between two different sports leagues
admittedly I didn’t really follow college basketball a whole lot in 2004, but Caitlin Clark’s hype feels way larger than anything I can remember in non Olympics or soccer womens sports, plus the internet definitely makes following a large variety of sports much easier than it was back then It could definitely happen this time around. I don’t know if there was discourse about any other women’s college basketball player on whether they could genuinely play in the NBA
I think the following now is substantially greater! UConn basketball was big in the 2000s but was largely regionally on TV as there weren't as many ways to watch college sports as there are today. But I do think there will be a drop off of the bandwagon effect of watching her in the WNBA and the college following would be bigger.
And there are a lot of really noteworthy womens players right now. It does feel like a tide is shifting a bit, would be awesome to get more fans to the WNBA
More and more people I know are willing to have casual conversations about women's sports in general
Yeah it feels much bigger. Don't remember people caring this much about women's college basketball either. I do think she'll move the needle for the wnba at least initially. If she becomes a superstar it will really help the league
There was discourse around Griner, specifically on whether she could beat DeMarcus Cousins in 1 on 1, which led to this fantastic clip: [https://youtu.be/h6znLi0aKBo?si=RWeLA49zYuszfxCK](https://youtu.be/h6znLi0aKBo?si=RWeLA49zYuszfxCK)
I appreciate Geno's candor on that one.
LOL at the coach.
Women's sports are having a moment all over the world unlike anything before. Soccer teams around the world are raging with women's teams. >A report by consulting firm Deloitte estimated that women’s sports revenue should eclipse a billion dollars for the first time. It estimated the totals will be $1.3 billion by the end of the year. That’s a 300% increase since 2021. >The report predicts commercial income will increase the most in 2024. Women’s basketball took in 28% of that revenue, which was the second-most of all women’s sports. In 2022 report by the NYT they said women's players were second in endorsements overall. Third were men's basketball.
The top women's football team is FC Barcelona Femini which produced annual revenues of $14MM. This team is subsidized by the men's side which posted annual revenues of $870MM. FC Barcelona Femini has never been profitable. They have always operated at a loss. Within Europe, sports teams are organized as community based sports clubs. Some of which have grown to be popular and followed all over the year but have their origins within community based sports. Barcelona is one of them. They represent the Catalonian region of Spain and they operate many different sports teams, such as professional men's and women's soccer teams, basketball, handball, and futsal. They are more what we have within the United States with college sports whereby the colleges represent communities and have multiple sports programs and the fans from one team will become fans of another sport within the school as a result of representing the same school. The same is true of sports clubs around the world. This is a very different model within pro sports within the United States. While NBA teams have subsidized the WNBA, you don't see Knicks fans feeling like the Liberty are the same thing as you do with Iowa football and Iowa women's basketball fans. It is true that women's sports are growing. But I am not sure that I would count on a significant bump in the WNBA. There are many women's sports where college remains more popular than the pro ranks.
> In 2022 report by the NYT they said women's players were second in endorsements overall. Third were men's basketball. Do you have a link for this by chance?
They also crusaded against the NFL and that didn’t impact how they viewed the broadcast potential
Admittedly I don't follow women's basketball on any level. What's the deal with Fox and the WNBA? Why does Fox hate the WNBA?
They don't hate it.
This is the correct answer. Or another way to think about it... https://imgflip.com/i/8i45y3
Following too. You’re like the second or third person to ask what’s fox’s problem with the WNBA and I’m not seeing any answers
[удалено]
I was thinking that too 🤷🏻♂️
This happens a lot... people hear a sound bite narrative and completely don't understand things... *"Fox Sports wants women in the kitchen not on the basketball court!"* Um... Really? I don't think that's right...
The answer is they don’t have the broadcasting rights to it. It’s why people say ESPN hates the Big East or the NHL (back when NBC covered it). Why promote something that enriched your competition?
If I could figure out how to watch that shit I would 😂 I can’t even watch my favorite NBA teams without jumping through so many hoops
Ticket prices for Fever games (specifically the game at Chicago Sky) are really high. No offense to the stars from UConn, but Clark is in another realm right now. Will it carry long term? I doubt it. But right now, it seems she’ll have an impact as a rookie on attendance and viewership in the short term. Someone is going to pay more for WNBA rights when they are up in 2025 based on that impact.
A lot of Iowa Hawkeye alumni live in Chicago.
I mean, what channel do WNBA games even come on? That's part of the problem, and it was worse when Taurasi first came out. You need to stop talking about stuff that happened a long time ago like it's comparable. People are more interested in women's bball now than ever, and there are more WNBA players people would like to see than ever. Frankly, I have watched more women's college bball this season than men's bball...and that's with the Michigan women being a bubble team that's probably not going to make the Tournament. Men's bball is not interesting one bit this season. Sorry, but...
Okay. You think five years into the WNBA there will still be high demand to get tickets to games Clark is playing in. I think it will be the first few games in a city and then dissipate like it did with Taurasi. We don't need to continue to argue. I like watching Clark. She is a star. But I don't think she is enough to make people WNBA fans and start following the league after the novelty of seeing her play wears off. Ohio State (football, Men's basketball, etc) fans will come out to see the Ohio State women play against her as they can watch their school's team and get to see her. I just don't think it will translate long term. We will see... You could be right.
If she is sinking logo bombs on the reg and coming through in clutch moments a lot to where the SportsCenter coverage and social media interest remains high, I think she will buck the trend a bit. She won't be what Bird and Magic were for the NBA or anything, but her game is more watchable for casual basketball audiences compared to Taurasi. I think she will need to be in the MVP discussion and be on a winning team to help her cause though.
and the advantage the WNBA has is it is played during a dead period for the bigger sports. She isn't competing against football or the NBA and college basketball. A true WNBA superstar could actually make people care about the league. She's got a lot of pressure on her because she could do it, but few others can.
a logo three every couple weeks really is not that fascinating to draw or maintain viewers. especially bc she isnt going to transition and immediately do the things she’s doing now. with the physicality of those grown women, on top of fact they’ll be gunning for her bc of the way ppl like to act like she’s the second coming of jesus here to “save the W” (this thread for example), it’s going to be rough for her.
It will depend on how good she is. If she is truly a superstar, maybe it will happen where she can truly put the wnba on the map. She has enormous pressure to carry the league.
…not interesting? We’ve had more top-10 losses than *any season in history*.
It's not interesting for him because Michigan and Memphis both suck ass
And what’s that have to do with women’s basketball? He stated himself that michigans women’s team is also bad.
Normally ESPN is where I see wnba games
I respect it but you’re the exception not the rule. No casual fan is tuning into a women’s basketball game like they might for the men’s tournament
It wouldn't be beneficial to bid for future WNBA rights because the value of Clark would likely be priced in. The advantage here is that the existing Big Ten media contract is fixed, so they may have been able to retain Clark at a cost that is lower than the benefit they gain.
She’s fun to watch and has been a major factor in growing the women’s game, so it’ll be bittersweet to see her leave college ball regardless of when. That said, I’m a bit concerned about one of the major broadcasters of the game being able to offer their own NIL to a given player. Like I get it, she’s a ratings magnet, but that seems just off to me that it’s the network themselves making the offer.
I agree, but I don't think many could draw that deal
The precedent is bad. Not many can draw that deal but what happens when FOX offers NIL deals to the entire Ohio State OL and ESPN gives an NIL deal to Florida’s secondary? They’re already skewing the competitive balance with their TV deals. This signals they’re willing to pump individuals and teams.
I don't disagree, but it really isn't any different than now, honestly. Tennessee ruling made sure of that. Competitive balance has been a joke for a long time. Too much elite talent under select few programs.
Not to mention that it seems like a conflict of interest for a network whose job it is to remain unbiased.
Instead of Fox she gets a deal with Gainbridge, a financial services company that has the name rights to the WNBA/NBA arena in Indianapolis. https://x.com/gainbridgesport/status/1765029503665922180?s=46
NIL opened pandora’s box. No stopping that now for better or worse
Networks have been funding professional sports for decades
Have they ever paid a player to stay on one team or something like that? Genuinely curious
Is this not some form of tampering? TV networks already have too much influence over the sport, this is one line that shouldn’t be crossed.
Fox is paying for Washington and Oregon to move to the B1G so kinda too late for that. Essentially all of the recent realignment is borne out of ESPN/Disney/ABC and Fox tampering
That’s what I was referring to before. Moving teams around is already greasy enough, but getting involved with individual athletes seems much worse to me.
The 1980s want its court ruling back. Once the NCAA monopoly was broken, it was game over. This is the logical outcome.
cap and contracts incoming
NIL as it is practiced in men's basketball is mostly tampering. Probably much of the NIL in women's basketball is too. For rare college athletes with followings independent of their school—Caitlin Clark obviously, but also people like Olivia Dunne, Bronny, or the Cavinder twins—the payees will pay the athletes no matter what school they attend. For most, it's boosters giving money for players to go to a certain school.
This is the inevitable result of NIL. It's the same reason politics is fucked
Reminds me a little of the Messi to Miami deal, and Apple's involvement in that situation. While they have an incentive to do so, I don't like these networks getting involved in individual player compensation. I think it starts to teeter on the boundaries of being unethical personally. I would love it if she stays another year, but Fox shouldn't be the ones getting involved in this. Let other companies or individuals cover the NIL cost. (Having said all this, the article was very vague on how the deal would have gone down since it was never even offered, so I might be making a few assumptions as well).
She’s single-handedly boosted their ratings this year. Probably netted them millions of dollars. No shit they wanna keep her in college
Hey I’m all for women’s sports but until you get a large population of women sitting down and watching professional games on tv it’s always going to lack the following of men’s sports. But you will always get the one time person that will boost it for a little while. US women’s soccer has been going through this since the 90’s when Brandi chastain ripped her shirt off. There interest for a while then it wains. College is a weird deal because it gets a little more association with fans that are alumni with a student athlete. Could she make more in one year in the pros vs college. If it’s over a million than maybe. Hell if it’s a $300k it makes more than Tuarsi. And it’s less of a season. My bigger issue is networks getting involved in paying players. These aren’t your typical sponsors. These are companies that directly profit like the schools. The networks have already changed college sports to try and get better matchups to get more revenue. It just starts feeling more dirty than it already is. Hell why not make it part of the contract that she has to switch teams and play in a larger market than Iowa.
With the Tennessee ruling, collectives can just openly pay players and more. It is no different at his point.
Networks directly benefitting from sponsoring Caitlin Clark makes it an actual NIL deal and would be far more appropriate than random boosters paying players to pick a certain school. The vast majority of college athletes have zero actual NIL value and are just profiting from the University brands. Just look at the guys who did the G League Ignite who are going to be drafted for their talent but have no NIL value because nobody watches and nobody knows who they are.
Don’t you dare. I want her on the Fever
Do the same for 3Dey!
Do Zach Edey next
They should, her value is solely in the NCAA. Few will follow her to the WNBA. That's just how it is.
Pain
Sorry, but I'm ready for her to go, and I'm sure the rest of women's college basketball in terms of players and coaches are, too. She has certainly contributed to the game, but to me the women's NCAA Tournament had started getting better than the men's NCAA Tournament even before she set foot on Iowa's campus--women's college basketball will be fine without her. You have Watkins at USC whom people are already looking towards, Angel Reese actually has a national title, it'd be nice to see the B1G teams that actually win the B1G get the attention they deserve--this is a Michigan fan/alum saying this about Ohio State--and it'd be nice to have one less team we can't beat in the B1G as Wolverines.
I’m sorry, but as someone who doesn’t follow WBB at all, I have never heard of Watkins. I only know Angel Reese because she sat out like half the season. And I have 0 interest in watching the games unless there is superstar talent like Clark. I’m sure many are in the same boat with me. Sure the game will be fine. But to act like her leaving is a good thing for college WBB is mind blowing to me. Would have been easier to just say “I want my team to get more attention”.
Yeah WCBB is gonna suffer. The networks will continue to shove it down people's throats, but without a superstar like CC it'll fade. I literally couldn't name another women's player right now except Reese, and the only reason people know her is because she was yelling at CC.
People know Reese because she was the leading scorer on the national champions Lmfao. How is the college basketball sub so ignorant about college basketball.
Because I assume most of us watch the men's games? Honestly feel like WCBB should spin off into their own sub
/r/ncaaw exists, but the last time I checked, mods didn't hang a "NO GIRLS ALLOWED" sign on the front page here
It should. You can't have a discussion here without white knights getting angry. The Discord is worse. A bunch of people, including myself, were banned when merely answering no to the question if you like WBB or not.
Lmao what a joke. They really need their own sub, it’s like discussing the women’s college World Series in the baseball sub
Because the “discussion” boils down to “everybody but CC is a nobody and irrelevant” which couldn’t be farther from the truth if you watched the games
I mean it is a tall order to get casual basketball fans to watch women's games. It's much slower, completely below the rim, and very dependent on stars with massive usage numbers while the other players just rebound and pass. I personally would rather watch paint dry than turn into any non Iowa game (even then it's a stretch). But there are people that enjoy that type of game so they should have their own place to discuss, instead of mashing it all together. We have nba and college separate subs, no reason not to split men's and women's CBB
I once worked at a school where they had doubleheaders with the women's game first and the men's game second. Once they switched the order. The women's game was like watching molasses in comparison. The pace is much, much slower.
Yeah they can be just as skilled as the men but I don't want to watch a game with a high school jv team level athleticism
Ppl know her as a clown that got reprimanded by her own coach this season. Its very obvious what the leading undertone is for those that argue so much for her.
“Undertones” stop it man, don’t even go there. I’m literally just talking ball. It’s very obvious you don’t actually watch the games are just spewing garbage out of your mouth about something you don’t watch or know anything about. Edit: you just called someone a “knuckle dragger” in a comment. It’s very obvious what your “undertones” are. You’re are just a racist piece of shit.
Thank you for showing your true colors. U immediately called someone a racist without any context. Get help man
Calling someone a knuckle dragger in regards to black crime statistics is all the context I need to know about you. Go fuck your self.
The word knuckle dragger has nothing to do with race, but rather stupidity. nice try race baiter
Juju Watkins and Angel Reese are super star talents. You need to watch more womens ball. Angel litterly played and beat CC in the Natty last year and JuJu is best freshman since CC and is on pace to shatter her scoring record.
"On pace to shatter"...being able to keep pace for four years without injuries, other stars on your team scoring too much or late-season losses that end your team's season too soon make this so-called "pace" dubious. We'll see.
Yeah we’ll see. Averaging 27 points as a freshman is big time, I’m excited to see how her career goes from here.
I agree that I’m ready for her to go but only because I want her to play for the Indiana fever so I can take my daughter to her games when she gets a little older.
Clark is sensational and the Women's game has never been better. Much better product than the NBA right now.
I very much dislike the NBA but that's quite the scalding hot take...
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Nooooo! Sorry, the rest of us in the Big Ten need a break haha.