If John Skipper were still in charge at ESPN, it sure sounds like he would be adjusting his valuation of women’s basketball up after a monster past year for the sport.
In a conversation on Sporting Class from his company Meadowlark Media released Friday, the former ESPN president predicted the popularity of the sport will survive beyond Caitlin Clark’s graduation date. Skipper also forecasted that as a result, the recent ESPN deal for NCAA programming including the women’s basketball tournament will soon look like a massive bargain.
“ESPN just did the deal to renew all of the NCAA, and the jewel within that deal … is the women’s basketball tournament,” Skipper said. “That’s a great buy.”
Skipper believes that although the NCAA undervalued the women’s tournament (again), the WNBA and perhaps other women’s sports leagues can come to the table with far more leverage given how interest in women’s basketball has spiked the past year.
“You’re not going to have any credibility to say, ‘[Caitlin Clark] is a phenomenon, this is going to go right back down, and next year the WNBA ratings will be the same as they were,'” Skipper said. “This is going to lift things.”
The situation has pros and cons for the NCAA. Perhaps they would have gotten a better number if they had negotiated the deal after this year’s even more massive tournament viewership.
“In the eighth year of the deal, $65 million. That’s going to look like a spectacular buy,” Skipper said of the ESPN deal. “I think this is going to become a phenomenon year after year.”
However, NCAA broadcast rights aren’t the only financial figure that matters in college sports. That was Skipper’s main focus while running ESPN, but the women’s tournament becoming a mainstream sports moment could open the floodgates for more. Athletic departments can make more on tickets and sponsorships. Athletes can ask for more in NIL deals. And conferences can negotiate higher rates for regular-season women’s basketball games.
The future of women’s college basketball post-Clark is uncertain. But if John Skipper, the former head of the biggest sports network in America, believes yesterday’s price is not today’s price, others will likely follow suit.
[The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz]
About Brendon Kleen
Brendon is a Media Commentary staff writer at Awful Announcing. He has also covered basketball and sports business at Front Office Sports, SB Nation, Uproxx and more.