Women’s college basketball teams to be paid for playing NCAA Tournament games after approval of new plan

In a historic vote Wednesday at the NCAA convention in Nashville, the organization approved a plan to pay women’s basketball teams for making the NCAA Tournament. Men’s basketball teams have been reaping the benefits of the same revenue sharing plan for many years. 

The proposal to pay the tournament teams was split into two votes. On the question of whether to establish a fund, all 292 members present voted “yes.” On the question of whether to start payouts with the upcoming 2025 NCAA Tournament, there was one dissenting “no” vote, but the measure still passed easily. 

“We’re the lucky ones,” NCAA president Charlie Baker said. “We got to be here on the day it became a reality.” He added that he wants to continue working to grow women’s basketball. “That’s the part I hope, that someday down the road, we all will have someone say about us that they sit on the shoulders of the work that we did.”

Under the plan, teams will be given performance units that represent revenue. Each conference that gets an automatic bid will receive one unit, with additional units awarded for each team receiving an at-large bid. The longer a school’s tournament run lasts, the more units said school’s conference will receive. It is then up to the conference to decide how to split the revenue it receives among its members. 

In the first year of the plan, which begins with this season’s tournament, $15 million will be awarded to the tournament teams, which represents 26% of the women’s basketball media deal. By 2028, that will rise to $25 million, or 41% of the media deal. 

“The long awaited, hard fought for and well-earned day is here …,” said North Carolina coach Courtney Banghart, the president of the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association. “I am so grateful for the effort of so many to bring this reality to our sport. Women’s basketball is more popular than ever before, seats are filled, arenas are sold out and games are on national TV almost every night.”

Women’s basketball, and, in particular, the women’s NCAA Tournament, has surged in popularity over recent years — thanks in large part to superstars such as Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese. Last season’s national championship game, which saw South Carolina defeat Clark’s Iowa, drew a record-setting 18.9 million viewers to become the most-watched women’s college basketball game ever. It also outdrew the men’s national championship game for the first time.

The 2025 NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament will begin March 19-20 with the First Four and concludes with the Final Four in Tampa, Florida from April 4-6.