Dawn Staley is calling on ESPN and the NCAA to renegotiate their TV deal, saying women’s basketball has outgrown its current value and deserves more.
During her 16 seasons, Staley has led South Carolina to three NCAA women’s basketball national championships(Image: Getty)
Dawn Staley has never been afraid to speak her mind — and now she’s calling on ESPN and the NCAA to give women’s college basketball the money she believes it deserves.
At a recent book event in Columbia, South Carolina, the national championship-winning coach, who recently spoke on the spirited Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese rivalry, called on both sides to revisit the NCAA’s eight-year, $920 million media rights deal with ESPN, signed in January 2024. That deal includes broadcast rights for 40 championships — including women’s basketball — and pays the NCAA roughly $115 million per year.
“We should get more money from ESPN,” Staley said. “We’re in a television deal. When we signed the deal three or four years ago, we weren’t where we are today. Let’s go back to the table and let’s talk about where we are today. Let’s negotiate in good faith.”
Staley’s comments reflect a broader push for equity in media rights across college sports, especially as the profile and popularity of women’s basketball continues to soar. This year’s NCAA championship game between Staley’s South Carolina team and UConn drew an average of 8.5 million viewers — the third-highest audience in women’s college basketball history, even without superstar Caitlin Clark in the final.
By contrast, CBS and TNT pay a combined $1.1 billion annually for the rights to the men’s NCAA tournament. While the men’s title game averaged roughly three times more viewers than the women’s, the difference in payouts is staggering: ESPN’s entire NCAA package is worth nearly 1,000% less than the men’s deal, and the specific allocation for women’s basketball ($65 million in annual “units”) is about 1,700% smaller.
Staley, who in 2021 became the highest-paid black women’s basketball coach in the country after negotiating salary parity with South Carolina’s men’s coach, is no stranger to changing the financial landscape.
