Dawn Staley Sends Emphatic 1-Word Reaction to NCAA Women's Tournament Team Pay News
A January 15 report from Teresa M. Walker of the Associated Press wrote, "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," the article continued.
This is a massive (and long overdue) shift for the sport of women's basketball. And no program would have stood to gain more from this rule change being instituted one year earlier than it was than Dawn Staley's South Carolina Gamecocks, who won the 2024 NCAA National Championship.
Staley was quoted in the aforementioned AP article. And her reaction to this news made it clear that she's not lamenting its timing.
"YES!" Staley is quoted saying when asked about her first thought hearing of the vote.
She then added, "This continues our fight to lift women's basketball to historic levels. I appreciate the decision by the Kaplan Hecker and Fink law firm to include the lack of units in their report as a key issue holding women's basketball back from capitalizing on the historic viewership and quality of the product on the court."
The article also sheds light on how the money will be dispersed by saying, "The longer a school's tournament run lasts, the more units the school's conference receives. Conferences decide the distribution of unit revenue to each of its members. Each unit was worth about $2 million for the 2024 men's tournament."
Therefore, if Staley's South Carolina squad was to repeat as NCAA Champions in 2025, the entire SEC would benefit financially from it. But their (and every other team's) conference will earn revenue with each round in the tournament a school progresses to. With the member schools then reaping the benefits as well.