A year ago, the NCAA locked in an eight-year, $920 million media rights deal with ESPN, covering 40 college championships—including the red-hot Division I women’s basketball tournament. At $115 million a year, it’s a huge leap from the old deal, which paid just $34 million annually for 29 championships. Everyone cheered: more money, more airtime, more love for women’s sports! But hold up—it seems like the NCAA might’ve fumbled big time, especially for women’s basketball.
Media consultant John Kosner has been a leading critic. Speaking to FOS, he remarked, “I just felt that there was more value to be had.” Kosner’s analysis hinges on his own findings. In a 2021 Kaplan Report on gender equity, co-authored with fellow consultant Ed Desser, Kosner crunched up the numbers and found that the women’s basketball championship alone could command between $81 million and $112 million annually in rights fees. Compare that to the $65 million within the currently bundled deal and the gap becomes glaring. While he did acknowledge that “By definition, they have a lot of pressure on them and they have to view it conservatively,” nodding to the NCAA’s need to ensure revenue stability for its member schools. But conservatism, he implied, may have cost them a windfall.
A year after the NCAA’s $920M women’s championships deal was signed, some experts still think the package is undervalued.
Women’s basketball alone was valued at about $30M more than the entire previous NCAA championship package.@achristovichh on if the deal was undersold
— Front Office Sports (@FOS) March 23, 2025
And the numbers back his argument. Beyond the 2023 championship’s 9.9 million viewers, the 2024 Women’s Final Four—featuring Iowa’s Caitlin Clark in her final collegiate run—averaged 12.3 million viewers, a 285% surge from 2021. Regular-season games also saw spikes; Iowa’s matchup against Ohio State on March 3, 2024, drew 12.3 million viewers on Fox, the highest-rated regular-season game since 1999. These figures dwarf viewership for many of the other championships in the ESPN package, like men’s soccer (averaging 0.5 million viewers for its 2023 final) or women’s volleyball (1.1 million for its 2023 championship). Why, then, tie women’s basketball to these smaller properties?
Yet, beneath the record-breaking numbers and newfound visibility, a deeper story unfolds. The NCAA had the chance to push women’s basketball even further—but chose not to. From overlooked valuations to dismissed recommendations, key decisions shaped the deal’s outcome. Now, as shocking details emerge, questions linger about what could have been.
Interesting insights on NCAA’s $920M ESPN details come to light
The current system forces a difficult choice, as media, fans, and industry professionals must decide between the men’s and women’s Final Fours. Furthermore, NCAA sponsorship rules give priority to the men’s tournament, requiring brands to invest there first. As a result, opportunities for the women’s game remain limited. However, Kosner and Desser saw a better path. They urged the NCAA to separate the women’s tournament from other championships and sell it as an independent package. In their view, it deserved to stand on its own rather than constantly competing for leftovers.
All Kosner and Desser can probably see is a missed opportunity. They argue that unbundling women’s basketball could have sparked a bidding war among networks like NBC, and CBS, or even streaming giants like Amazon, driving up its worth. “If you create a package that only one entity can really bid for, you don’t know the value of it,” Kosner told FOS, highlighting how ESPN’s dominance in sports broadcasting may have stifled competition. The two of them also made several recommendations that the authorities ignored, as he recalled, “It was clear that there was a solid constituency of those who didn’t seem to be doing much in the way of change”.
Meanwhile, endeavor consultants explored other options but, alongside the NCAA, chose to bundle all sports, fearing smaller championships might go unsold. “I wanted the best deal for everybody,” NCAA president Charlie Baker said in 2024. Yet, Kosner and Desser argue a smarter play—selling women’s basketball separately, putting the likes of Paige Bueckers and JuJu Watkins on a higher platform, and bundling other top championships—could have brought in more money.
Dec 21, 2024; Hartford, Connecticut, USA; UConn Huskies guard Paige Bueckers (5) and USC Trojans guard JuJu Watkins (12) on the court in the first half at XL Center. Mandatory Credit: David Butler II-Imagn Images
The NCAA did have a pragmatic answer for everything though. Karen Brodkin and Hillary Mandel, executives at Endeavor who advised on the deal, brought up how the 2023 market was treacherous: “It’s not like we’ve ever seen before.” Layoffs at major networks, declining ad sales, and streaming platforms grappling with subscriber churn—Disney, ESPN’s parent, reported a $1.5 billion streaming loss in 2023. So, a cash-stripped environment was the norm back then. Therefore, ESPN, with its willingness to pay $115 million annually, offered security that other bidders couldn’t match.
Also, Carol Stiff, a women’s basketball Hall of Famer, argued that no one is seeing the bigger picture. “This is a pivotal time in women’s sports,” said Stiff, a women’s basketball Hall of Famer who retired from ESPN in 2021. “I’m not in favor of breaking up the bundle. Not only do you have the crown jewel in women’s basketball, but look at the growth of the other sports — softball, volleyball, gymnastics. All of that comes into play. And not just women’s sports either – look at what the NCAA and ESPN have done together in baseball and lacrosse, just to name a couple. This is about assigning a value for comparison purposes – the value for the whole is much stronger together.”
But the glaring gender disparities make it hard to not question. The Kaplan Report found men’s championships received 70% more media exposure and resources than women’s, despite the latter’s growth. In 2021, a viral moment exposed it further: Oregon player Sedona Prince posted a TikTok contrasting the men’s lavish Final Four weight room with the women’s paltry setup—a single rack of dumbbells. The clip, viewed over 13 million times, fueled the Kaplan Report’s push for equity, including a recommendation to host men’s and women’s Final Fours together. Something that the NCAA never adopted. As a result, the idea has been shelved for at least a decade. “It locks in second-class citizenship,” Kosner says.
Yet, the story isn’t over. The sport’s momentum—driven by fans, athletes, and undeniable results—suggests it won’t stay that way forever, hopefully at least. For now, though, the phrase rings true: this contract holds it back when it’s ready to lead.
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