Good to know the gang, and fortunately fringe minority, that shouted “women’s sports are boring” by no means had a leg to face on within the first place. Their ignorance turns into clearer and extra definitively described as sexist every day. This 12 months’s NCAA Tournament has been a large catalyst for the Field of Dreams idea — should you construct it, they may come. The scores, star energy, and ticket costs are proof that should you gave women’s sports activities a correct platform for anybody to observe, they might. And fan curiosity has echoed that in some ways.
According to ticketing expertise firm Logitix, demand for tickets to the NCAA Women’s Final Four is the very best it’s ever been on the secondary market. Prices for the trio of video games tonight and Sunday in Dallas greater than doubled from their costs one 12 months in the past. Logitix discovered that the average-priced ticket for the semifinal video games, earlier than charges from a number of ticketing web sites, was $166 for the 2022 women’s Final Four. That’s as much as $367 this season, a rise of 120 %. Scoring seats to the championship recreation had a rise of 103 %, leaping from $173 to $351 for the typical ticket. The least expensive ticket obtainable on StubHub on Friday morning was obtainable for $323 earlier than charges. And that’s for the nosebleeds. For the decrease bowl? The least expensive obtainable is $1,530 earlier than charges, the identical as a meal for 4 at Thomas Keller’s Per Se.
At the identical time, curiosity within the males’s Final Four has dropped by greater than 25 % over the identical span. The common ticket for the lads’s nationwide semifinals was $1,105 a season in the past, all the way down to $819, per Logitix, a 26 % lower. The championship recreation had related outcomes, a 28 % low cost from $574 final 12 months to $415 on Monday. That’s solely $48, ok for one slice of black truffle at Le Bernardin. The males’s Final Four is going down in a soccer stadium, not a conventional area meant for basketball, however as of lunchtime Friday, loads of tickets had been obtainable for underneath $100.
It’s not misplaced that the stark variations between lodging for the NCAA males’s and women’s tournaments in the course of the bubble situation had been solely two years in the past. That August, an exterior gender fairness evaluation of the NCAA learn:
“The results have been cumulative, not only fostering skepticism and distrust about the sincerity of the NCAA’s commitment to gender equity, but also limiting the growth of women’s basketball and perpetuating a mistaken narrative that women’s basketball is destined to be a ‘money loser’ year after year.
“Nothing could be further from the truth. The future for women’s sports in general, and women’s basketball in particular, is bright.”
G/O Media might get a fee
42% Off
Amazon Fire TV 50″ 4K Smart TV
Incredible visuals
This smart TV has access to a wide array of streaming services, all of which are easier to navigate, has 4K visuals for a stunning picture, and comes with an Alexa Voice Remote too.
And now Aliyah Boston, Caitlin Clark, and Angel Reese are fulfilling their part of that process.
Speaking of the biggest stars from three of the four teams left fighting for a national championship, who on the men’s side compares to any of their star power? Before two weeks ago, could even a moderate college basketball fan name anyone on Florida Atlantic or San Diego State? And one of them is going to play for a national championship. It’s possible UConn’s Jordan Hawkins was on the radar of sports fans, or Miami’s Isaiah Wong for being the poster boy for how to leverage NIL, but Boston, Clark, and Reese have dominated on the court all year long. The biggest stars on the men’s side will be watching the Final Four, not playing in it.
Those who couldn’t travel to watch the games in person have shown up in front of their televisions too. Sunday’s Iowa-Louisville Elite Eight game averaged 2.5 million viewers on ESPN, up 94 percent from Stanford-Texas last year, which was the largest television audience for a game outside the Final Four before this season’s tournament. Ohio State’s Sweet 16 upset of UConn, arguably the most recognizable brand in women’s college sports, drew 2.41 million viewers on ABC, which nearly tripled last year’s equivalent of 879,000 viewers on ESPN2. This year’s Sweet 16 and Elite Eight had four of the seven biggest audiences in women’s tournament history outside of the Final Four.
So once more, women’s sports activities are boring? That argument ought to’ve been completed with after the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup, when the ultimate between the United States and Japan had 26.6 million viewers in America. Yet, the arguments of it involving all the nation or being a quadrennial occasion stupidly existed. We ought to’ve buried these claims years in the past, however with the shovels from this 12 months’s NCAA women’s tournament, they should be gone without end.
Discussion about this post