There is a reason college basketball’s 68 team tournament holds the name March Madness — but for decades, only half of it commanded any attention. Every year, upsets, Cinderella runs, and dominant dynasties fill three weeks of chaos from the First Four to the National Championship. Yet, while the men’s tournament consumed headlines, the women’s was largely an afterthought, buried in secondary TV stations and on the back pages of newspapers. Recently, however, the culture around women’s collegiate basketball has shifted. In 2024, the Women’s National Championship, an epic battle between Caitlin Clark’s Iowa Hawkeyes and Kamilla Cardoso’s South Carolina Gamecocks, peaked at 24 million viewers, over 20 percent more than the men’s championship that same year.
Giselle Lopez, a senior at Berkeley High School and BHS girls basketball player, echoed this. “I feel like the women are starting to make a comeback,” she said, reflecting on the growing popularity of the women’s game.
Lopez credited two players in particular, Sabrina Ionescu and Caitlin Clark, whose three point shooting garnered worldwide attention and dominated ESPN headlines. Anna Sigman, a BHS sophomore and girls basketball player, explained that stars in the women’s game don’t define the sport, they simply help bring awareness to it. “It makes people notice how good the women’s tournament actually is,” Sigman said.
For girls participating in high school basketball, it is especially important to see women compete on the national level. “I look up to a lot of the women. I try to see myself in them, and learn from what they do,” Sigman said.
“March Madness gives us something to look forward to as a possibility, and it gives us hope that we will be recognized one day,” Lopez said. BHS freshman and girls basketball player La’Nia Devine-Scott, who says she watches women’s college basketball exclusively, attributes that loyalty to something personal. “I have more of a connection with women’s basketball,” she said.
Still, there is a large disparity in national notoriety between the men’s and women’s tournaments. Much of this stems from publicity during the regular season. According to ESPN Press Room, on average, men’s regular season basketball games get nationally televised six times more frequently than women’s games. Looking at this statistic alone, it is easy to see why the women’s tournament is lagging behind in viewership — if teams aren’t watched during the regular season, they won’t be relevant when the postseason arrives, no matter their record. “We need more fans in the stands who constantly show up, rep school spirit, and support women’s sports,” Devine-Scott said, commenting on the viewership discrepancy.
Lopez also highlighted another fundamental issue in women’s sports — inadequate funding. “We need to fund women more. Period,” she said, explaining how men’s sports such as football and basketball receive substantially more funding than women’s sports, forcing women’s teams to fight for equality with inferior equipment and supporting staff.
The trajectory of women’s college basketball is undeniable — with record viewership, transcendent stars, and a generation of younger athletes who finally are able to see themselves on the court.
Combined with the recent Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) budget expansion, inluding a 466 percent salary cap increase, the women’s sports scene is breaking glass ceilings. But momentum alone cannot fill the gap. Until women’s basketball receives equal funding and airtime, the tournament’s popularity will continue to lag behind the men’s, despite the extraordinary talent displayed by the players. March Madness has always been about the underdog seizing its moment. In many ways, that is exactly the story of the women’s collegiate basketball franchise. With the right support, its moment may finally be arriving.