Women's basketball isn't having a moment. This is our new reality

I was in the seventh grade the first time sports writing gave me a visceral feeling.

UConn capped a 39-0 season to win its third national title in eight years, and I anxiously awaited the delivery of Sports Illustrated.

When it arrived, Marylands Juan Dixon graced the cover, but across the April 8, 2002, edition of the magazines top, it read: UConns AMAZING WOMEN, Pg.

44.

Advertisement I immediately flipped past Faces in the Crowd, where you could reliably see female athletes in the magazine in 2022, and tore through the feature that detailed the lives of UConns close-knit seniors: Sue Bird, Swin Cash, Asjha Jones and Tamika Williams.

How they lived together off campus.

Cooked weekly family dinners.

Fought over card games and bet about who would be the first to cry on senior night.

...

I ate it up.

These details stayed with me years later, because as a womens college basketball fan in the 1990s and 2000s, there wasnt much out there to consume about the most exciting teams and players.

You rarely forgot anything.

Facts just existed in your brain (sometimes for the next 20 years).

After rereading the UConn story, I turned to the back page to check out the column I always read Life of Reilly.

The headline? Out of Touch with My Feminine Side.

You think its hard coaching in the Final Four? You think its tough handling 280-pound seniors, freshmen with agents, athletic directors with pockets full of pink slips? columnist Rick Reilly began.

Please.

Try coaching seventh-grade girls.

After working with boys for 11 years, I helped coach my daughter Raes school basketball team this winter.

I learned something about seventh-grade girls: Theyre usually in the bathroom.

Those few pages about UConns intense, elite women were sandwiched by a three-word headline on the cover and 800 words better suited for bad movies or lazy literature on the back page.

It was disappointing and frustrating.

Worst of all, even to my seventh-grade self, it was expected.

For so much of sports history, women athletes (and their fans) have had to accept the highs with the lows and move forward, understanding that too often the lows were intentional a lack of investment, institutional support or attention.

Later, those lows were artificial reasons to continue holding down and holding back the sport.

Its the womens sports Catch-22.

The Caitlin Clark Effect poured over into the WNBA this summer, and teams across the league not just the Fever drew record crowds and massive TV ratings.

As the womens college season began this week, even without the stars that pushed womens college hoops to new levels, interest remains.

GO DEEPER Paige Bueckers vs.

JuJu Watkins: How UConn, USC stars will keep women's basketball in spotlight Defending champion South Carolina sold out its season ticket packages for the first time in program history.

UConn sold out its season tickets for the first time since 2004.

LSU and Iowa , without Angel Reese and Clark, respectively, sold out.

Texas, Notre Dame and Tennessee are also reporting huge increases.

Five months before the national title game, tickets are sold out for the Final Four, and the resale market is buzzing.

Nosebleeds for the national championship game are nearly $200, while a courtside seat will run close to $3,000.

For the first time since 2004-05, our Gampel Pavilion season tickets are SOLD OUT! Limited season tickets remain for XL Center games https://t.co/SLhPATBr4S pic.twitter.com/QGyhYGh81F UConn Womens Basketball (@UConnWBB) October 2, 2024 Nobody in womens hoops has won like Dawn Staley Final Fours as a player, national titles as a coach, Olympic golds as a player, Olympic gold as a coach.

Her South Carolina office drips with memorabilia.

Yet, among all of her special accomplishments, this particular moment in womens college basketball feels uniquely different to her.

It feels like were free to just explore where this game can go, she said.

Theres no boundaries on us, and because of that, youre seeing talent, youre seeing coaching, youre seeing fan support, youre seeing viewership youre seeing all of those things.

Advertisement Staley speaks often and openly about how the womens game was intentionally held back by so many for so long.

First, by the exclusion of women in sports before Title IX.

Then, by the NCAA , which prioritized mens college basketball.

Also, by television media partners, which refused to put the game in front of as many as possible (and then used that lack of audience as a reason to not air it on major networks), and in print media coverage, which refused to write about womens sports (and then often claimed no one read about it).

Then came last season.

A year in which the womens national title game pulled in nearly 4 million more viewers than the mens title game, just three years after the Kaplan Report exposed the NCAAs intentional undervaluing of the game and allowing its media partners to underpay.

This, Staley said, with a pause, motioning with her hands to indicate everything over the past year.

I never thought it would come during a time when I could be a part of it.

Anyone who has been around womens basketball will share guarded optimism as well as excitement for this season.

Will this finally be the tipping point? Will the forces that held back the game permanently move out of the way? Tara VanDerveer has seen it all, including what she thought was the turning point.

Twenty-two thousand people showed up for Iowa vs.

Ohio State in 1985, her first season in Columbus.

But it turned out to be an outlier.

Throughout her career, which began with her driving the team bus and doing the laundry as an assistant coach and ended last season at Stanford with three title rings and 1,216 career wins, she experienced those starts and stops, times when a moment couldve turned into momentum if it had investment, support and excitement.

We needed to build on that, not have it be a one-off, VanDerveer said.

Keeping our eye on the ball, keeping having the game grow.

More young girls playing.

Great high school tournaments, enthusiasm for the college game.

People being excited about the WNBA .

Advertisement VanDerveer says today feels like that.

Clark pushed the game to new heights last season.

This year, USC s JuJu Watkins , UConns Paige Bueckers and the Gamecocks on a 39-game winning streak are poised to continue the momentum.

NIL has completely changed how womens basketball players are marketed (and given them power), bringing in new fans.

The transfer portal opened player movement and democratized the games increasing parity.

Look around and youll see as many as 10 teams that look capable of heading to the Final Four.

Gone are the days when a UConn or Tennessee could win so much they were blamed as being bad for the sport.

Less than a week into the season, weve already seen top-five teams pushed to the brink.

The talented stars in womens hoops? They draw.

But the parity, which has never been better, and true belief that on any given night, anything could happen? Thats riveting.

What were seeing is long overdue, and it still feels like its just getting started.

For decades, womens college hoops deserved better than playing second fiddle in the NCAAs orbit.

It needed to be untethered so that the moments could fit together into something bigger and better.

It was worthy of more than three words on the front cover and a patronizing column on the back page.

It deserved the full spread.

So please, decision-makers and stakeholders, dont mess this up.

Theres a new generation of seventh-graders watching.

(Photo of Dawn Staley: Sean Rayford / Getty Images).

This article has been shared from the original article on theathleticuk, here is the link to the original article.