Soccer, NCAA Basketball Games Getting Big Network Treatment

Topline

For the first time, the National Women’s Soccer League will air its 2022 championship in prime-time and the NCAA women’s basketball championship game will air on network TV, it was announced Tuesday, in moves made to “maximize the exposure of women’s sports.”

Aubrey Bledsoe #1 of the Washington Spirit celebrates the win during a game between North Carolina … [+] Courage and Washington Spirit at Audi Field on November 7, 2021 in Washington, DC.

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Key Facts

The NWSL moved its 2022 championship game to prime time at 8 pm from its initial 12 pm slot on October 29, CBS announced Tuesday.

The NCAA women’s basketball championship will air on ABC for the first time ever on April 2, 2023 at 3 pm, the NCAA and ESPN said in a statement.

The game won’t air on prime time like it previously had because the network is already committed to airing entertainment shows later that day, but ESPN—which, like ABC, is owned by parent-company Disney—told the Associated Press it could return to the slot in the future.

NWSL league commissioner Jessica Berman said the change was made “to advance the women’s sports landscape” and is “an opportunity our players fully deserve.”

ESPN executive Burke Magnus said bringing the women’s NCAA game to ABC “has been a goal for quite some time in our ongoing efforts to maximize the exposure of women’s sports.”

Big Number

4.85 million. That’s how many viewers last year’s NCAA championship game between South Carolina and UConn averaged on ESPN networks this year, the most since the games began airing on the cable channel in 1996. The men’s championship March Madness game, which aired on TBS, TNT and truTV , averaged 18.1 million viewers, the highest ever.

Tangent

The announcements come as the WNBA playoffs began airing Sunday on ESPN.

Key Background

The 2022 NWSL championship game will be played at Audi Field in Washington, DC. The NCAA announced in September that it would extend its March Madness branding to the women’s Division I championship tournament. Last year, an external report found the college sports organization underpriced broadcast rights to women’s tournament games, and disproportionately understaffed it compared to the men’s tournament, decisions which “perpetuat[ed] gender inequality.”