Sports
Paige Bueckers leads big women’s March Madness TV ratings in post-Caitlin Clark era
If you are reading this, you likely know who Paige Bueckers is. Maybe you are also familiar with Lauren Betts, Maddie Booker and MiLaysia Fulwiley.
But Meg Aronowitz, a senior vice president of production for ESPN and the company’s point person for its women’s basketball coverage, cannot afford to make a similar supposition. When the women’s Final Four games air on Friday (7 p.m. ET and 9:30 p.m. ET), she and her ESPN colleagues have to cater, at least in part, to the casual viewer who might watch only one or two women’s basketball games each year.
“This is the part of the tournament where we have to absolutely remind ourselves that this is an entirely new audience joining us,” Aronowitz said. “I know that that sounds very TV cliche, but we have to teach them who these stars are. I tell my people — repeat your best stuff. New viewers are tuning in every round, and we have to make sure that we are giving people a reason to come back on Sunday for the title game.”
We have reached the most interesting part of this tournament as far as a media-centric examination. Why? Because of last year’s outlier viewership. ESPN executives know that it will be impossible to duplicate the Final Four viewership numbers from a year ago — and that is a direct result of Caitlin Clark not being in this tournament. Iowa’s win over UConn in the national semifinals set a then-new record for the most-watched women’s college basketball game in history with an average of 14.2 million viewers. It was ultimately topped by the 18.9 million viewers who watched the title game between Iowa and South Carolina. Yes, there are plenty of popular players in women’s basketball but only one viewership unicorn — that kid from Iowa with unlimited range.
But this year’s numbers present data points that speak to the growth of women’s college basketball writ large. The Elite Eight games averaged 2.9 million viewers, the second most-watched Elite Eight round on record, only behind the Clark-infused (6.2 million viewers) numbers from last year. Elite Eight games in 2025 were up 34 percent from 2023. ESPN said four of the top 10 Elite Eight games on record aired this year, including:
• LSU-UCLA (3.4 million viewers, No. 3 Elite Eight game all-time)
• Duke-SC (3.1 million, No. 4)
• UConn-USC (3.0 million, No. 6)
• TCU-Texas (2.3 million, No. 9)
The Sweet 16 round averaged 1.7 million viewers across ESPN’s networks, the second-most-watched Sweet 16 on record behind last year (which averaged 2.4 million viewers) and up 39 percent from 2023. This year delivered four of the top 10 Sweet 16 games of all time, including 2.9 million for Tennessee-Texas (No. 3) and 2.5 million for Notre Dame-TCU (No. 4).
The second round of the women’s tournament averaged 982,000 viewers, the second-most-watched second round on record behind the 1.4 million viewer average last year. It was up 60 percent from 2023.
The first round of the women’s tournament averaged 367,000 viewers. That’s down 22 percent from 471,000 last year (as expected without Clark) but up 43 percent from 2023.
Heading into the Final Four, all games have averaged 967,000 viewers, up 47 percent from 2023.
“People came to the women’s Final Four last year because they wanted to see what Caitlin Clark would do,” Aronowitz said. “But it wasn’t just the Iowa games that were rating. The entire tournament rated for us, and it is our job to make sure that we continue to tell the stories of the teams and these student-athletes and give people a reason to stick around.”
ESPN will focus a ton this weekend on Bueckers because stars draw people in. The UConn star had 40 points in the Sweet 16 win over Oklahoma and 31 points against USC on Monday. She is averaging 29 points per game in the tournament.
We’ll never know, given the devastating ACL injury to USC star JuJu Watkins, but you can imagine that the Elite Eight game featuring a healthy Watkins and Bueckers might have become the most-watched Elite Eight game in history.
“Everybody’s talking about Paige,” said Aronowitz. “It’s not ‘Paige Bueckers.’ It’s just ‘Paige.’ When you get to that point where you are first name only, that’s when you know, wow, people are starting to pay attention. The story that comes along with her, all of the injuries, the playing through COVID and the resilience of this young woman, that’s a story that will get people to want to watch. So we are thrilled to have Paige in Tampa.”
(For fans of Watkins, Aronowitz said that ESPN’s women’s basketball group is going to make it a focus to document her return. Said Aronowitz: “We are going to document her journey to recovery, and we can’t wait till there’s a time where she’s got a spring in her step and she’s back out on the court and we get to be able to talk about her success and recovery.”)
As ESPN has seen more success with the women’s Final Four, the investment in technology increases. Aronowitz said this year’s Final Four will be in high dynamic range (HDR), a first for the women’s game. The production has 45 cameras in total, including more super slow-mo and high-frame-rate cameras than ever before.
These are all signs of growth. The interesting number for me will be how the Final Four and title game tracks not against 2023 but the 2022 title game, which we can call the “PTC Era” (Prior To Caitlin). That title game — a 64-49 South Carolina win over Bueckers and UConn — averaged 4.85 million viewers. At the time, it was the most-watched women’s title game since 2004, and the fourth-largest audience to watch a women’s championship game since 1996. The UConn-Stanford national semifinal in 2022 drew 3.23 million viewers, which was the most-watched women’s semifinal game in the PTC era since 2012.
These are the numbers to beat — and I think this Final Four and championship game will do it comfortably.
(Photo: Alika Jenner / Getty Images)
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WWE will swing for the fences for the second straight year when it hosts one of its major premium live events of the year at a Major League Baseball ballpark.
The company announced on Monday that Survivor Series: WarGames will take place at Daikin Park in Houston – the home of the Astros – on Saturday, Nov. 28. It follows up the success of last year’s Survivor Series: WarGames event, which took place at Petco Park in San Diego – the home of the Padres.
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Roman Reigns lands a Superman Punch on Brock Lesnar during Survivor Series at Petco Park in San Diego, Calif., on Nov. 29, 2025. (Rich Freeda/WWE via Getty Images)
“Houston is the perfect host city to celebrate this milestone chapter in Survivor Series’ storied history, and we look forward to partnering with Houston First and the Houston Astros to deliver an unforgettable event,” WWE Chief Content Officer Paul “Triple H” Levesque said in a news release.
WarGames is a highly anticipated match, which has taken place yearly among wrestlers on the WWE roster since 2022. The premium live event has also seen some dramatic returns.
Stephanie Vaquer enters the ring during Survivor Series at Petco Park in San Diego, Calif. (Georgiana Dallas/WWE via Getty Images)
In 2023, CM Punk came back to WWE at the end of the show and shocked the entire sports world. Randy Orton also made his in-ring return during the match. Last year, a mystery attacker interrupted the WarGames match and gave the win to The Vision and company.
It’s unclear what is in the cards right now for the 40th edition of the event.
“We are proud to be able to help bring one of the world’s premier entertainment brands to Houston for what promises to be an unforgettable holiday weekend,” said Michael Heckman, President and CEO of Houston First, which partnered with WWE to bring the event back to Houston.
Liv Morgan and Dominik Mysterio celebrate their win during Survivor Series at Petco Park in San Diego, Calif. (Rich Freeda/WWE via Getty Images)
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“Hosting WWE Survivor Series will bring thousands of passionate fans to our city and generate a significant economic impact for community. Houston has earned a reputation for delivering world-class entertainment events, and we look forward to welcoming the WWE Universe to our destination.”
How much would you pay for a pair of shoes? Someone else’s shoes, I mean.
Would you pay $7,000 for a chair on which Taylor Swift sat in a basketball arena — for an NBA playoff game, not for her wedding? Someone did.
There was one Swift chair up for bid. The Dodgers gave away 52,000 trading cards as part of a promotion for the Japanese animated series “One Piece” this month, and the current asking prices for one of those cards on eBay range from $784 to $15,656. Even at the low end … strike that, there is no apparent low end to the collectibles market these days.
Now add Shohei Ohtani to the mix. A pair of his cleats hit the auction block Monday, hyped by the promoter as “one of the most significant baseball artifacts ever” and “the greatest baseball footwear ever made available” and “the most culturally significant footwear ever worn on Japanese soil.”
In this case, the adjectives are more than breathless. Ohtani is the best player in baseball, the favorite to win his fifth most valuable player award in six years, an international tourist attraction, and a global pitchman making an estimated $125 million in sponsorships and endorsements this year.
So, the footwear: These are the cleats Ohtani wore when the Dodgers opened the 2025 season in Japan, decorated with art of his world-famous dog Decoy and signed by Ohtani with Asian kanji characters rather than English letters.
The cleats were purchased last year by Take to the Universe (TTU), a Japanese company that distributes beauty and wellness products in Japan and throughout Asia. State records show the company registered a subsidiary in Los Angeles two months ago.
The cleats Shohei Ohtani wore during the Dodgers’ 2025 season opener in Japan are on the auction block.
(The Realist)
“We thought, hey, we could actually use this to market our company and enter into the U.S. market,” said Ryoji Iguchi, chief executive of the subsidiary. Iguchi declined to say how much TTU paid for the cleats.
For a Japanese company to leverage Ohtani and the Dodgers to introduce itself to an American audience is nothing new — not just for tangible consumer goods, but also for animated characters.
You wouldn’t actually go into a store and ask for a TTU product, though. You eventually might go into a store and ask for a beauty product made by another company. TTU would just get it there.
So how does selling a pair of cleats create brand awareness for a brand consumers would not even know?
“This interview,” Iguchi said.
The Ohtani Economy strikes again: You don’t know us, but we’re coming to America, we want to help you sell your wares — and we’re selling Ohtani’s cleats!
The sale was arranged by Scott Keeney, founder of the Realest, a Los Angeles-based enterprise specializing in sports and entertainment memorabilia.
The cleats Shohei Ohtani wore during the Dodgers’ season opener in Japan in 2025 are on the auction block.
(The Realist)
Keeney talks about the “museum-grade” and “investment-grade” quality of the cleats. You might find a trading card marketed as one of one, but someone could make another. In this case, no one can make another pair of cleats worn by Ohtani on that particular day.
“It’s no different than art, where you’re seeing paintings selling for tens, hundreds of millions of dollars,” Keeney said. “The top grails are in a category of their own.
“It’s what the ultra, the top 0.0001% want, and they appreciate faster than anything else in the category.”
So how much might the Ohtani cleats command, given the combination of sport and celebrity?
Kobe Bryant’s sneakers from the game in which he tore his Achilles tendon — and hit two free throws before he left the court — fetched $660,000. Michael Jordan’s “Flu Game” shoes sold for $1.4 million. Kanye West wore “Air Yeezys” to the Grammys, and the pair sold for $1.8 million.
The ball Ohtani hit for his 50th home run in his 50-50 season: $4.4 million. And, speaking of holy grails: Judy Garland’s ruby slippers from “The Wizard of Oz” fetched $32.5 million.
I cannot afford that, in this lifetime or any other. Perhaps you can. If you cannot, the Realest is offering this free-to-enter contest: Guess the sale price of the Ohtani cleats and, if you come closest to the actual sale price, you win 1% of the price. In the event of a tie, the first submission wins.
The cash would be nice, because this is just a pair of someone else’s worn shoes. But, since everything else Ohtani does seems to be unprecedented, this auction just might be too.
Sports
Stefon Diggs, still seeking new NFL home, insists no team has a better No 2 receiver ‘than me’
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Stefon Diggs is still looking for his next NFL team after one season with the New England Patriots, which ended in a Super Bowl LX defeat.
With NFL training camps across the country set to kick off at the end of the month, Diggs, who will be entering his 12th season, made quite the statement during a recent YouTube video on his channel.
Diggs stated that he is the best No. 2 receiver in the league, and he explained why.
New England Patriots wide receiver Stefon Diggs (8) walks to the podium to speak to the media after a minicamp held in the WIN Field House at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts, on June 10, 2025. (Eric Canha/Imagn Images)
“Everybody got a 1,,” he said. “Opportunities aside, people might say there’s seven real 1s. In my opinion, I can compete with anybody, but take those as your 1s. You can’t name a No. 2 better than me. There’s not a No. 2 on a team. Let’s presumably give people the credit and just say, ‘OK, you want to take the No. 1 spot away.’ Name your No. 2 receiver right now. Tell me how much he makes. My last question is: Is he better than me?”
Diggs put up 1,013 yards in his 11th season, his first and only with the Patriots, on 85 receptions (102 targets) with four touchdowns from breakout star quarterback Drake Maye . It marked Diggs’ seventh 1,000-yard season in the NFL, which have come in seven of the last eight seasons.
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The 32-year-old did note being a No. 2 option, which means he could be willing to take a pay cut to join a squad that he could help get back to the playoffs and, as ever player hopes, the Super Bowl. But no team has pulled the trigger just yet.
Could Diggs’ off-the-field issues be a factor? He faced some serious allegations in December after being charged with felony strangulation and misdemeanor assault in a dispute with his private chef.
New England Patriots receiver Stefon Diggs speaks during his introductory press conference on March 28, 2025. (John Tlumacki/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)
However, Diggs was found not guilty by a jury, with the NFL closing its review on the matter, stating there was insufficient evidence to warrant a suspension for violating its personal conduct policy. Diggs’ attorney said that “professional athletes have a target on their back” following the non-guilty verdict.
“We have taken these allegations seriously from Day One and that’s exactly why we were eager for the facts to come to light through the legal process,” Mitch Schuster of Meister, Seelig & Schuster, the firm that represented Diggs, said in a statement provided to Fox News Digital in May.
The Patriots released Diggs in March, but he has been staying in shape and looking for the next opportunity since the league cleared him last month.
New England Patriots wide receiver Stefon Diggs plays against the Seattle Seahawks during Super Bowl LX at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif., on Feb. 8, 2026. (Mark J. Rebilas/Imagn Images)
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Teams to watch could be the Los Angeles Chargers, New York Giants, Washington Commanders, Kansas City Chiefs, or even a Buffalo Bills reunion with Josh Allen, who built such a rapport with him to earn four straight Pro Bowls from 2020-23.
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