Hidden within a busy weekend of pro and college football heading into Christmas, Fox scheduled one of the biggest games of the women’s college basketball season. Paige Bueckers and JuJu Watkins, the two biggest stars in the sport, took full advantage of the national TV spotlight and delivered an instant classic.
The network was rewarded handsomely. The USC-UConn thriller ultimately rated as the second-most-watched college basketball game of the season, behind only the men in Illinois-Arkansas on Thanksgiving.
While Fox college sports VP Derek Crocker told the Sports Business Journal the Saturday primetime slot for USC-UConn was built around its NFL lead-in and a little “blind faith,” 2.3 million viewers is a home run for December college basketball.
Far from being a lucky one-game blip for Fox, the game highlighted how in the follow-up to women’s college basketball’s Caitlin Clark-led glow-up, networks continue to treat the sport like a major draw — and it’s working.
In 2023, it was hard to track down ESPN’s broadcast plans for the women’s game. This year, it bragged about airing 3,420 games across broadcast, cable, and streaming platforms. That’s still nearly 700 fewer games than it will air for men’s college hoops, but close. ESPN’s embrace of women’s college basketball will culminate in a rematch of the 2021 national championship game between UConn and South Carolina in February on ABC.
While Lincoln Riley didn’t give the Big 10 or its partners at NBC and Fox quite the football season they likely wanted, JuJu Watkins effectively filled Clark’s vacated spot as the women’s hoops star of the conference. The networks are taking advantage. Fox placed the Dec. 21 tilt between USC and UConn in its premier Primetime Hoops schedule among top men’s games.
“That [window] gets the most amount of promotion, the most amount of support from a marketing team, and an opportunity to put our best games, whether that’s men’s or women’s,” Crocker told SBJ of that window.
Fox will also air USC’s battles with Iowa, Ohio State, and UCLA down the stretch of the season.
Beyond the scheduling or the viewership, Fox also put its premier talent on USC-UConn. The very busy Jason Bennetti was joined by analyst Sarah Kustok and reporter Allison Williams to bring viewers a broadcast that felt as huge as the Bueckers vs. Watkins clash.
It should be no surprise Fox is leading the way in betting on women’s basketball post-Clark.
“I think a permanent step forward has happened, and we’re still going to see some pretty strong interest in the future,” Fox exec Michael Mulvihill said earlier this year, naming Bueckers and Watkins specifically as future flag-bearers for the sport.
Other networks are following suit. ESPN continues to expand its acclaimed women’s basketball College GameDay and doesn’t hesitate to fly its top team of Ryan Ruocco, Rebecca Lobo, and Holly Rowe out to marquee regular-season games. NBC hired WNBA star Aliyah Boston as a studio analyst last year and will air USC-Indiana on its broadcast network in January. Even CBS, which owns Big 10, Big 12, and several mid-major conference rights, has a stable of great announcers that includes Lisa Byington and Debbie Antonelli.
In short, networks are opening up their schedules and bank accounts for women’s basketball the same way they always have for men’s basketball.
Depending on how you look at it, the women’s game may even be outpacing the men’s game right now. Watkins and Bueckers will get four and three national games on broadcast networks the rest of the season respectively, while Cooper Flagg, the biggest men’s hoops star, gets just two. Duke and Flagg get a ton of games on ESPN through its ACC partnership, but tucked away on cable, Duke’s biggest game so far this season drew fewer viewers than Watkins-Bueckers over the weekend. Marquette and NIL stud, amid a breakout season and buoyed by Fox’s Big East embrace, still doesn’t clear USC’s four broadcast network games going forward.
With all these apples-to-oranges comparisons, here’s what we can say definitively: Top sports networks are increasingly giving women’s hoops the best, most accessible TV slots. Even with Clark gone, fans are flocking to these games and rewarding networks.
At the same time, men’s hoops still own cable, where network execs may trust its brand affiliation and viewership habits more. The average men’s basketball game is likely still a better bet than the average women’s game. Yet among the top stars, Bueckers and Watkins appear to be at least as bankable as a phenom like Flagg.
Many wondered whether part of the excitement around Clark and Angel Reese the past two springs was a real narrative and history around the rivals and their teams. After a surprise run to the Elite Eight by a freshman Watkins and four-plus years of ups and downs for Bueckers, even the casual sports fan likely has more vested interest in those two than another one-and-done like Flagg.
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