Women's basketball teams finally will be paid for playing games in the NCAA Tournament each March just like the men have for years under a plan approved Wednesday at the NCAA convention. The unanimous vote by NCAA membership, which was met by a round of applause, was the final step toward a pay structure for women playing in March Madness after the Division I Board of Governors voted unanimously for the proposal in August.
NCAA President Charlie Baker joined others in giving credit for the creation of a performance fund to those who came before and helped build women's basketball. “We’re the lucky ones," Baker said. "We got to be here on the day it became a reality.”.
Now comes more work to continue investing in women's basketball to grow the sport even more. "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,” Baker said.
So-called performance units, which represent revenue, will be given to women's teams playing in the tournament starting this year, the event's 43rd edition. A team that reaches the Final Four could bring its conference roughly $1.26 million over the next three years in financial performance rewards.
In the first year, $15 million will be awarded to teams out of the fund, which is 26% of the women’s basketball media revenue deal. That will grow to $25 million, or 41% of the revenue, by 2028. The 26% is on par with what men’s basketball teams received the first year the performance units program was established.
