The Women’s Basketball Market: Bumps and Trends

Over the past two decades, viewership for the NCAA Women’s Basketball Championship game held steady in the 3 to 4 million range. That changed in 2023 and 2024, when audience numbers spiked to 9.9 million and then 18.9 million. The catalyst was clear: Caitlin Clark’s run with Iowa. Viewership has since returned to 8.5 million, well above historic norms & continuing an upward-sloping 20-year trend, suggesting a structural reset in audience expectations.

The WNBA continues to operate with strategic patience; in 2023, the league and teams generated an estimated $180–$200 million in revenue. A projected $50 million operating loss in 2024 reflects intentional investment in charter flights, brand expansion, and international positioning. Media rights are the next inflection point: current estimates suggest a leap from roughly $50 million today to as much as $200 million annually by 2031. This is a bet on long-term value and a window for adjacent platforms to meet demand the league can’t yet absorb.

That same realignment is unfolding across college basketball, albeit on different terms. The NCAA’s current women’s basketball media deal is valued at $65 million annually through 2031, a tenfold increase that marks a valuation reset. Revenue-sharing begins in 2025, and the proposed $2.8 billion House v. NCAA settlement could deepen the shift by authorizing schools to distribute up to $20.5 million annually in athlete compensation, replacing scholarship limits with roster caps, and introducing a central NIL clearinghouse.

Rachel Meng Brown recently noted that the settlement would apply primarily to Power 4 schools and thus risks reinforcing two longstanding imbalances: the gap between revenue-generating and Olympic sports, and the divide between top-tier conferences and everyone else. As I wrote last week, Title IX compliance looms large, particularly as financial flows tilt heavily towards football.

But considering the above snapshot between the WNBA and NCAA, there’s no need to declare that women’s basketball has “arrived.” The audience numbers, media deals, and revenue trends already tell that story, quietly but clearly. What matters now is structure. Some programs are positioned to scale but others are not. Some institutions will see NIL and revenue-sharing as friction but others will treat it as signal.

As an economist, I believe that markets don’t move because of headlines; they move because the underlying systems, such as media, money, and infrastructure, begin to realign. I believe that is what we’re watching now, and if the trendline continues, more of us are watching as a habit, for the narrative and not just highlights, than ever.

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