Sports
NCAA signs lucrative TV deal for championships, but women’s college hoops stays in bundle
The NCAA on Thursday said it had reached an eight-year agreement with ESPN worth $115 million annually to televise 40 college sports championships each year, including the marquee Division I women’s basketball tournament that many people within college sports had hoped would be primed for even bigger returns given a wave of recent popularity.
The $920 million deal ended several years of speculation and debate about how the NCAA could capitalize on an influx of fans in women’s sports, including basketball. Powerful teams like South Carolina and UConn and star players like Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese and Sabrina Ionescu have created higher expectations for a sport that has earned much less money than men’s college basketball and college football, counterparts that have received far higher investments from universities and media companies for nearly a century.
The NCAA’s current contract with ESPN, which was extended in 2011 and runs through the end of this season, brings in $34 million per year and includes 29 championships. A report in 2021, commissioned because of complaints about glaring differences between the men’s and women’s basketball tournaments, suggested that the women’s tournament could earn at least $81 million in the first year of a new deal — if it were sold on its own and not as part of a package deal — although that estimate was met with some skepticism by industry experts for its ambitions.
Ultimately, the NCAA and ESPN agreed to keep the bundle and valued the women’s basketball tournament at about $65 million per year under its portion of the agreement.
NCAA president Charlie Baker acknowledged in an interview that selling women’s basketball on its own was not viable given the realities of the market.
“We said from the beginning that we wanted the best deal that we could get for all of our championships,” Baker told The Athletic. “There was a lot of informal conversation that took place with many other potential participants in this negotiation, but the one who constantly engaged and the one I would argue was the most enthusiastic in a significant way throughout the course of this was ESPN.
“The way they handled the negotiations demonstrated that this was really important to them, that it continued to be part of their portfolio. They will be a terrific partner, I think, going forward here.”
Last year’s NCAA women’s basketball title game, won by LSU and coach Kim Mulkey, smashed viewership records. (Kirby Lee / USA Today)
The new contract does not include the highly lucrative Division I men’s basketball tournament; Paramount Global and Warner Bros. Discovery pay nearly $900 million per year to broadcast that event on CBS and the Turner cable networks in a long-term deal that runs through 2032. The new NCAA-ESPN contract also expires in 2032, which will give the NCAA more flexibility in its next media rights negotiations, Baker said. (The NCAA does not control the rights to Football Bowl Subdivision postseason games, and the College Football Playoff handles its own negotiations and controls its own revenue.)
The new contract is set to begin Sept. 1 and includes guarantees that the national championship games in women’s basketball, women’s volleyball and women’s gymnastics will be broadcast on ABC each year.
GO DEEPER
What does the NCAA’s new media rights agreement mean for women’s college basketball?
A number of prominent women’s basketball coaches, including South Carolina coach Dawn Staley, had advocated for the NCAA to spin off the championship into a stand-alone media deal, like the arrangement used for the men’s basketball tournament.
Last season, the women’s title game aired for the first time on ABC and drew 9.9 million viewers — and featured the most people to ever watch a men’s or women’s college event on ESPN+. Overall viewership growth was up 55 percent, and the sport’s stars — players and coaches — became household names. Many in and around women’s basketball expected this deal to reflect the recent significant growth in the sport by pulling it out of a package it shares with dozens of other sports.
“It should happen,” Staley said in March. “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.
“It’s slowly building up to that because there’s proof in the numbers.”
The NCAA’s media advisers at Endeavor’s WME and IMG Sports said their financial modeling valued the women’s basketball tournament at $65 million annually, which makes up more than half of the value of the new $115 million contract. Hillary Mandel, EVP and head of Americas for media at IMG, and Karen Brodkin, EVP and co-head of WME Sports, said they began the process of preparing for the NCAA’s negotiations by assessing the opportunities in the market both for individual sports and for the 40-sport bundle.
“In the end, you’ve got to find the deal that matches your goals and objectives and not unbundle because everybody’s saying to you: ‘Unbundle! Unbundle! Hey, it’s the cool thing to do!’” Mandel said. “Let’s just not get lost in the sauce of that conversation.”
The two sides began engaging in serious negotiations in late October, Brodkin said, and completed the deal during ESPN’s exclusive negotiating window, meaning the NCAA did not take its championship bundle to the open market for a potential bidding war. She said ESPN’s financial investment, its existing infrastructure and the “overwhelming amount of production” the network has committed to on both linear and streaming platforms made it the best opportunity for the NCAA. More than 2,300 hours of championships will air on ESPN’s linear and digital platforms annually as part of the contract, and 10 sports will have their selection shows broadcast.
“Retaining exclusivity was very important to us in a world of fragmentation,” ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro said.
Thursday’s news serves as yet another inflection point for women’s college basketball — though reactions are expected to be mixed. The tournament itself is valued at more than 10 times its previous valuation of $6 million to $7 million annually under the current contract, but its singular value was not fully tested. Still, the increased revenue and new $65 million valuation for the women’s basketball tournament set the stage for future change for the sport.
The NCAA will explore the idea of rewarding women’s basketball teams’ NCAA Tournament success with revenue distribution units, Baker said, a system used on the men’s side of the sport to reward conferences and universities for performing in the tournament. The Division I board of directors finance committee began discussions on that front in 2023 and will talk with its member universities more this year, the NCAA said.
“The tournament has grown dramatically because of the hard work of so many student-athletes and coaches and schools and folks at the NCAA and ESPN,” Baker said. “Hopefully, we’ll be able to figure out a way to make it happen.”
Currently, only men’s NCAA Tournament teams earn units by advancing in the bracket. Each team that earns a bid to the tournament earns a unit for its conference, with more units up for grabs based on wins in the tournament. Total revenue earned from tournament units goes to the conference of the team that earned it and is distributed to universities over a six-year period, and it comes from a portion of the revenue that the tournament itself brings in annually. The women’s tournament has, in the past, not brought in enough revenue to justify setting aside money for a unit system.
Women’s college basketball reached a big moment during the 2021 NCAA Tournament when the inequities in treatment between the men and women became obvious to the public. Though those within the game had known for years that the NCAA had favored men’s basketball to the detriment of other sports, a TikTok post from then-Oregon center Sedona Prince prompted far more widespread outrage and momentum for change.
@sedonerrr it’s 2021 and we are still fighting for bits and pieces of equality. #ncaa #inequality #fightforchange
♬ original sound – Sedona Prince
Prince’s tweet racked up 12.3 million views as the college star pointed out basic inequities, highlighting key differences between the women’s tournament and men’s in food provided to teams, access to weight rooms and even swag bags. Players and coaches were also vocal about other areas that showed how the athletes were treated differently, such as having 68 teams in the men’s bracket versus 64 in the women’s and the usage of “March Madness” branding only for the men’s tournament.
Within one week of Prince’s tweet, the NCAA had hired the law firm Kaplan, Hecker & Fink LLP to conduct an independent equity review of the NCAA. In August 2021, the firm released its 117-page review — known colloquially as the “Kaplan report” — of the NCAA’s gender equity within basketball championships. The Kaplan report recommended that the NCAA spin off the women’s basketball tournament separately from other sports, suggesting a higher valuation, and it said the NCAA had created differences in the tournaments by having different people working to organize them without properly conferring about whether they were comparable.
Baker and the NCAA’s media rights advisers said they evaluated all possible options, including going to the open market and trying to sell a stand-alone women’s basketball tournament package, but they opted against it.
“If the market had demonstrated to us and to Endeavor that it would be worth our while to do that, we absolutely would have gone that way,” Baker said.
Multiple industry experts told The Athletic over the past year that it would make the most sense for the NCAA to keep the women’s tournament with ESPN, a partner that broadcasts so much of the sport’s regular season that would be incentivized to cover the sport in the lead-up to the marquee postseason event. Brodkin said there would be no option better than one offering to triple their current deal in addition to increasing the investment in production, marketing and storytelling while putting more games on ABC.
“Unbundling for unbundling’s sake — you’d have to go through the exercise of who and how is someone going to do more than that?” Brodkin said.
Last season, the women’s title game aired on ABC for the first time, and ESPN announced in October that it would be broadcast on ABC again this season — though not in the prime-time slot. There could be more women’s sporting events put on ABC or in better windows moving forward as both sides agreed to meet regularly to consider changes to maximize visibility for events that demand it.
(Top photo: C. Morgan Engel / NCAA Photos via Getty Images)
Sports
Law firm fighting for women’s sports in SCOTUS battle comments on ruling possibly impacting SJSU trans lawsuit
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
A law firm leading the charge in the ongoing Supreme Court case over trans athletes in women’s sports has responded after a federal judge suggested the case’s ruling could impact a separate case involving a similar issue.
Colorado District Judge Kato Crews deferred ruling in motions to dismiss former San Jose State volleyball co-captain Brooke Slusser’s lawsuit against the California State University (CSU) system until after a ruling in the B.P.J. v. West Virginia Supreme Court case, which is expected to come in June.
Slusser filed the lawsuit against representatives of her school and the Mountain West Conference in fall 2024 after she allegedly was made to share bedrooms and changing spaces with trans teammate Blaire Fleming for a whole season without being informed that Fleming is a biological male.
Meanwhile, the B.P.J. case went to the Supreme Court after a trans teen sued West Virginia to block the state’s law that prevents males from competing in girls’ high school sports.
The Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) is the primary law firm defending West Virginia in that case at the Supreme Court, and has now responded to news that Slusser’s lawsuit could be affected by the SCOTUS ruling.
“We hope the ruling from the Supreme Court will affirm that Title IX was designed to guarantee equal opportunity for women, not to let male athletes displace women and girl in competition. It is crucial that sports be separated by sex for not only the equal opportunity of women but for safety and privacy. Title IX should protect women’s right to compete in their own sports. Allowing men to compete in the female category reverses 50 years of advancement for women,” ADF Vice President of Litigation Strategies Jonathan Scruggs said.
Slusser’s attorney, Bill Bock of the Independent Council on Women’s Sports, expects a Supreme Court ruling in favor of the legal defense representing West Virginia, thus helping his case.
(Left) Brooke Slusser (10) of the San Jose State Spartans serves the ball during the first set against the Air Force Falcons at Falcon Court at East Gym in Colorado Springs, Colorado, on Oct. 19, 2024. (Right) Blaire Fleming #3 of the San Jose State Spartans looks on during the third set against the Air Force Falcons at Falcon Court at East Gym on October 19, 2024 in Colorado Springs, Colorado. ( Andrew Wevers/Getty Images; Andrew Wevers/Getty Images)
“We’re looking forward to the case going forward,” Bock told Fox News Digital.
“I believe that the court is going to find that Title IX operates on the basis of biological sex, without regard to an assumed or professed gender, and so just like the congress and the members of congress that passed Title IX in 1972, allowed this specifically provided for in the regulations that there had to be separate men’s and women’s teams based on biological sex, I think the court is going to see that is the original meaning of the statute and apply it in that way, and I think it’s going to be a big win in women’s sports.”
The Supreme Court’s conservative majority appeared prepared to rule in favor of West Virginia after oral arguments on Jan. 13.
Slusser spoke on the steps of the Supreme Court on Jan. 13 while oral arguments took place inside, sharing her experience with a divided crowd of opposing protesters.
With Fleming on its roster, SJSU reached the 2024 conference final by virtue of a forfeit by Boise State in the semifinal round. SJSU lost in the final to Colorado State.
Slusser went on to develop an eating disorder due to the anxiety and trauma from the scandal and dropped out of her classes the following semester. The eating disorder became so severe, that Slusser said she lost her menstrual cycle for nine months. Her decision to drop her classes resulted in the loss of her scholarship, and her parents said they had to foot the bill out of pocket for an unfinished final semester of college.
President Donald Trump’s Department of Education determined in January that SJSU violated Title IX in its handling of the situation involving Fleming, and has given the university an ultimatum to agree to a series of resolutions or face a referral to the Department of Justice.
Among the department’s findings, it determined that a female athlete discovered that the trans student allegedly conspired to have a member of an opposing team spike her in the face during a match. ED claims that “SJSU did not investigate the conspiracy, but later subjected the female athlete to a Title IX complaint for ‘misgendering’ the male athlete in online videos and interviews.”
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
SJSU trans player Blaire Fleming and teammate Brooke Slusser went to a magic show and had Thanksgiving together in Las Vegas despite an ongoing lawsuit over Fleming being transgender. (Thien-An Truong/San Jose State Athletics)
SJSU Athletic Director Jeff Konya told Fox News Digital in a July interview that he was satisfied with how the university handled the situation involving Fleming.
“I think everybody acted in the best possible way they could, given the circumstances,” Konya said.
Follow Fox News Digital’s sports coverage on X, and subscribe to the Fox News Sports Huddle newsletter.
Related Article
Sports
Myles Garrett cited for speeding a ninth time, an elite pass rusher seemingly always in a rush
Myles Garrett is in a hurry to become the greatest pass rusher in NFL history. The Cleveland Browns All-Pro defensive end set the single-season sack record in 2025 and has cracked the top 20 career leaders after only nine seasons.
“I’m going to take that down, and I prefer I take it down in the next five years,” Garrett told Casino Guru News last month.
Off the field, however, his urgency to get from point A to B is a problem. He’s accumulating speeding tickets at an alarming rate.
On Feb. 21, Garrett was handed his ninth speeding ticket since his NFL career began in 2017. He was cited for driving 94 mph in a 70-mph zone on Interstate 71 between Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio.
The citation from the Wayne County Sheriff’s Office says Garrett was driving his green 2024 Porsche at 1:35 a.m., returning home after attending a Miami of Ohio basketball game in Oxford.
Body cam footage shows the officer telling Garrett that she kept the charge under 100 mph so that a court appearance wouldn’t be mandatory. Garrett reportedly still holds a Texas driver’s license — he attended Texas A&M — and told the officer that he did not have an Ohio license.
Cleveland Browns’ Myles Garrett wears a jacket displaying his girlfriend Chloe Kim before the women’s snowboarding halfpipe finals at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Livigno, Italy.
(Lindsey Wasson / AP)
The officer wrote that the famously affable Garrett was “kind and cooperative,” and that drugs and alcohol were not a factor.
Garrett’s need for speed flies in the face of his persona. He has written poetry since high school, peppers social media with inspirational sayings and donates time and money to several charities.
His girlfriend is two-time gold-medal-winning U.S. Olympic snowboarder Chloe Kim, for whom he wrote a poem he shared on social media: “You enrapture fools to kings, and exist without a peer, put on this Earth for many things, but our love is why you’re here.”
Verse hasn’t slowed his roll. On Aug. 9 he was cited for ticket No. 8, clocked at 100 mph in a 60-mph zone in a Cleveland suburb a day after the Browns returned home from a preseason game at Carolina.
Garrett’s seventh ticket followed a frightening crash in 2022. He flipped his gray 2021 Porsche 911 Turbo S off State Road in Sharon Township and he and a female passenger were injured. He was cited for failing to control his vehicle due to unsafe speeds on what had been a slick roadway.
A witness told a responding police officer that Garrett’s vehicle went airborne, took out a fire hydrant and rolled three times. Garrett sustained shoulder and biceps sprains and was sidelined for the Browns’ game that week against the Atlanta Falcons. His companion was not seriously injured.
Cleveland television station WKYC reported that in September 2021 Garrett was stopped twice in a 24-hour period — for driving 120 and 105 mph. The infractions occurred on Interstate 71 in Medina County, where the speed limit is 70 mph, and he paid fines of $267 and $287.
A year earlier, Garrett was cited for driving 100 mph in a 65-mph zone of Interstate 77 — again while driving a Porsche — and paid a $308 fine. He accumulated his first batch of speeding tickets in 2017 and 2018, and the police reports recite similar circumstances: Garrett driving well over the speed limit, cited without incident, paid a nominal fine.
The piddly fines certainly aren’t a deterrent. Garrett, 30, and the Browns agreed to a four-year contract extension in March 2025 that made him the highest-paid non-quarterback in NFL history at the time. The deal pays the seven-time All-Pro more than $40 million a season and includes more than $123 million in guaranteed money.
He set the NFL single-season sack record with 23.0 last season, surpassing the 22.5 accumulated by T.J. Watt and Michael Strahan. Garrett has 125.5 career sacks, averaging 14 a season, a pace that would enable him to break Bruce Smith’s career record of 200 in five years.
“That is definitely on my mind to go out there and get,” Garrett said. “That’s a goal I’ve had for years now since college.”
Garrett has declined to discuss his driving habits.
“I’d honestly prefer to talk about football and this team than anything I’m doing off the field other than the back-to-school event that I did the other day,” he told reporters after ticket No. 8 in August, referring to a charity appearance.
“I try to keep my personal life personal. And I’d rather focus on this team when I can.”
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
Former ESPN broadcaster Keith Olbermann once again incited backlash on social media Wednesday after he called late legendary college football coach Lou Holtz a “legendary scumbag” in an X post on the day Holtz was announced dead.
“Legendary scumbag, yes,” Olbermann wrote in response to a clip of Holtz criticizing former President Joe Biden in 2020 for supporting abortion rights.
Olbermann received scathing criticism in response to his post on X.
“You’re a scumbag that needs mental help,” one X user wrote to Olbermann.
One user echoed that sentiment, writing to Olbermann, “You’re the real scumbag here. Lou Holtz had more class, integrity, and genuine decency in his pinky finger than you’ll ever show in your lifetime.”
Another user wrote, “You’re a grumpy, lonely, Godless man. All the things Lou Holtz was not.”
Keith Olbermann speaks onstage during the Olbermann panel at the ESPN portion of the 2013 Summer Television Critics Association tour at the Beverly Hilton Hotel July 24, 2013, in Beverly Hills, Calif. (Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images)
Olbermann has made it a pattern of sharing politically charged far-left statements that are often combative and ridiculed on social media, typically resulting in immense backlash.
After the U.S. men’s hockey team’s gold medal win, Olbermann heavily criticized the team for accepting an invitation from President Trump to the State of the Union address. Olbermann wrote on X that any members of the men’s team who attended the event were “declaring their indelible stupidity and misogyny,” while praising the women’s team for declining the invitation.
In January, Olbermann attacked former University of Kentucky women’s swimmer Kaitlynn Wheeler for celebrating a women’s rights rally outside the U.S. Supreme Court during oral arguments for two cases focused on the legality of biological male trans athletes in women’s sports.
Former Notre Dame football coach Lou Holtz listens before being presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom at the White House in Washington, D.C., Dec, 3, 2020. (Doug Mills/The New York Times/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“It’s still about you trying to find an excuse for a lifetime wasted trying to succeed in sports without talent,” Olbermann wrote in response to Wheeler’s post.
In 2025, Olbermann faced significant backlash after posting (and later deleting) a message on X aimed at CNN contributor Scott Jennings, that said, “You’re next motherf—–,” shortly after the assassination of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk.
Holtz was a stern supporter of President Donald Trump, even saying in February 2024 that Trump needed to “coach America back to greatness!”
Near the end of Trump’s first term, shortly after former President Joe Biden defeated him in the 2020 election, Trump awarded Holtz with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award of the United States.
After Holtz’s death was announced Wednesday, several top GOP figures paid tribute to the coach on social media.
Those GOP lawmakers included senators Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala.; Todd Young, R-Ind.; Tom Cotton, R-Ark.; and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.; representatives Greg Murphy, R-N.C.; David Rouzer, R-N.C.; Erin Houchin, R-Ind.; and Steve Womack, R-Ark.; and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis; Indiana Gov. Mike Braun; U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon; and Rudy Giuliani.
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
Lou Holtz, former Notre Dame football coach, addresses the America First Policy Institute’s America First Agenda Summit at the Marriott Marquis July 26, 2022. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc)
At the time of publication, prominent Democrat leaders have appeared silent on Holtz’s passing, including prominent Democrats with a football background.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who worked as an assistant high school football coach; Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., who was a recruiting target for Holtz in 1986 as a college prospect; Rep. Colin Allred, D-Texas, who played in the NFL; and Rep. Kam Buckner, D-Ill., who played football for the University of Illinois, have not posted acknowledging Holtz’s death.
Follow Fox News Digital’s sports coverage on X, and subscribe to the Fox News Sports Huddle newsletter.
Related Article
Ranking the Broncos free agent needs on offense
Seattle agencies map out transit plan for downtown World Cup 2026 matches
Gas prices soar nearly another dime overnight
Illegal dumping plagues closed Milwaukee Pick ‘n Save
Thieves steal dozens of bikes meant for underprivileged kids from Atlanta nonprofit
Florida High School Football Rankings: Top 25 teams – Oct. 21
Cleary's 21 help Le Moyne down Central Connecticut State 69-64 in OT
How old is Bo Nix? What to know about Oregon quarterback ahead of 2024 NFL Draft
99th annual Pony Swim held in Virginia
Indiana Members Credit Union announced as new anchor tenant at Bottleworks District
Map: 4.9-Magnitude Earthquake Shakes Louisiana
Paxton vows he’s ‘staying in this race’ even if Trump backs Cornyn in Texas GOP clash
Which Kurdish groups is the US rallying to fight Iran?
Man accused of plot to assassinate Trump testifies Iran pressured him, says Biden and Haley were other possible targets
DHS defends McLaughlin against allegations husband’s company profited millions from ad contracts: ‘Baseless’
-
World1 week agoExclusive: DeepSeek withholds latest AI model from US chipmakers including Nvidia, sources say
-
Wisconsin4 days agoSetting sail on iceboats across a frozen lake in Wisconsin
-
Massachusetts1 week agoMother and daughter injured in Taunton house explosion
-
Maryland5 days agoAM showers Sunday in Maryland
-
Massachusetts3 days agoMassachusetts man awaits word from family in Iran after attacks
-
Florida5 days agoFlorida man rescued after being stuck in shoulder-deep mud for days
-
Denver, CO1 week ago10 acres charred, 5 injured in Thornton grass fire, evacuation orders lifted
-
Oregon6 days ago2026 OSAA Oregon Wrestling State Championship Results And Brackets – FloWrestling