{"id":19454,"date":"2025-05-08T21:01:11","date_gmt":"2025-05-08T21:01:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/19454\/"},"modified":"2025-05-08T21:01:11","modified_gmt":"2025-05-08T21:01:11","slug":"womens-basketball-continues-to-thrive-amid-college-athletics-uncertainty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/19454\/","title":{"rendered":"Women’s basketball continues to thrive amid college athletics uncertainty"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Editor’s note: This is the fourth installment of a multi-part series by MTN Sports on the current state of college athletics. For Part 1,\u00a0click here<\/a>. For Part 2,\u00a0click here<\/a>. For Part 3, click here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

MISSOULA \u2014 When Tricia Binford, then Tricia Bader, was playing in the WNBA against stars like Cynthia Cooper, Sheryl Swoopes, Lisa Leslie and Rebecca Lobo, the league had a prophetic marketing slogan:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe got next.\u201d<\/p>\n

The WNBA was founded in 1996, and Binford \u2014 following an All-Big Sky Conference college career at Boise State \u2014 spent five years in the league playing for the Utah Starzz in 1998 and 1999 and the Cleveland Rockers from 1999 to 2002.<\/p>\n

\u201cI did play for the Cleveland Rockers when we were nearly selling out those crowds per game. I played at Boise State where we sold out the fieldhouse when we played the (Montana) Grizzlies. There were 11,000 people for that game,\u201d said Binford, who has been the head women\u2019s basketball coach at Montana State since 2005 and recently signed a new four-year contract<\/a> with the university. \u201cSo, I just think there\u2019s more attention on it right now, to be quite honest.\u201d<\/p>\n

Women\u2019s basketball has long been popular in pockets around the country, with fans in Bozeman and Missoula generously supporting the programs at Montana State and Montana. But the sport has never garnered more national attention than it\u2019s getting right now.<\/p>\n

Television ratings for the NCAA women\u2019s tournament and the WNBA have skyrocketed in recent years. Locally, digital coverage of the MSU and UM women\u2019s teams this past season outdrew coverage of the men\u2019s teams on MontanaSports.com.<\/p>\n

Part of that was due to the historic season put together by Binford\u2019s Bobcats, who became the first Big Sky team to win 30 games in a single season, won the outright regular-season title and then edged rival Montana to win the Big Sky tournament championship and advance to the NCAA tournament.<\/p>\n

And part of it was just because women\u2019s basketball is in a great place.<\/p>\n

\u201cWomen\u2019s basketball is growing rapidly. I mean, its viewership across the nation, its attendance, all of those things are exploding, and in a lot of cases in some locations, have surpassed men\u2019s basketball,\u201d Montana coach Nate Harris said. Harris, who earlier in his career spent five years on Binford\u2019s staff at Montana State, was named the Lady Griz head coach<\/a> in March. He\u2019s been with the program since 2021, serving the first three-plus seasons as an assistant before being elevated to interim head coach after Brian Holsinger abruptly resigned<\/a> in January.<\/p>\n

\u201cWomen\u2019s basketball is only going to get bigger. There\u2019s only going to be more fans,\u201d Harris added.<\/p>\n

\"Montana<\/p>\n

Slim Kimmel \/ MTN Sports<\/p>\n

Montana interim head coach Nate Harris talks to the Lady Griz during a huddle against Idaho in a quarterfinal game of the Big Sky Conference women’s basketball tournament at Idaho Central Arena in Boise, Idaho, on Monday, March 10, 2025.<\/p>\n

While the game is healthy and more people are taking notice, women\u2019s basketball still plays third fiddle behind college football and men\u2019s basketball when decision-makers establish new rules for the NCAA\u2019s revenue-generating sports. Non-revenue-generating sports (i.e. almost every other collegiate sport) are just along for the ride, as conferences are reshaped ignoring geographical logic, massive TV contracts are negotiated and student-athletes fight for \u2014 and earn \u2014 more autonomy.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo much of it is driven by football, but then you have the obviously weird disparity of universities and conferences tend to \u2014 again, this is speaking in general \u2014 make money off of football, whereas the NCAA as a whole makes its money off their men\u2019s and women\u2019s basketball tournaments,\u201d Harris said. \u201cSo, there\u2019s just so many different pieces in play and who makes money here, and it\u2019s become big business.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like with any big business, money talks, and it\u2019s continuing to shape the college athletics industry in unforeseen ways, as the line between amateur and professional athletes is seemingly becoming blurrier by the day. President Donald Trump is reportedly establishing a commission<\/a> to examine the college sports landscape.<\/p>\n

Binford said she would like leaders to revisit the transfer discussion. Right now, players are allowed to transfer between schools multiple times without penalty.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re also able to profit off their name, image and likeness (NIL), which has created a Wild West at the highest levels of collegiate athletics. The biggest stars, across all sports, are reportedly earning millions of dollars.<\/p>\n

To that end, Binford would like to see a financial cap established.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m certainly not the expert on what this all needs to look like, but we need to educate our student-athletes on how to handle finances. I think that needs to be a priority,\u201d Binford said. \u201cWhen I played in the WNBA, that was one of the first things that they did for us, was talk about retirement plans and how you plan for taxes. And I just think we need to prepare our student-athletes for that. There’s a large amount of money that’s coming at them very quickly, and I think that there just needs to be some parameters around that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think NIL is absolutely something that student-athletes deserve,\u201d she added. \u201cIt\u2019s just, what does that need to look like at the college level for it to be productive?\u201d<\/p>\n

The fact that these topics even need to be addressed in women\u2019s basketball is a testament to how much the game\u2019s visibility has increased over the years. Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese, Paige Bueckers and JuJu Watkins have just as much or more name recognition as prominent men\u2019s players.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe state of women\u2019s basketball is at an all-time high,\u201d Binford said. \u201cI was at the Final Four (where Bueckers\u2019 UConn squad won the national championship), and it was sold out for all the games. Definitely want to see parity, but it\u2019s incredible times, and it\u2019s really fun to watch. We\u2019ve got a great product.\u201d<\/p>\n

It might be time, then, for women\u2019s basketball to update its marketing slogan:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe got now.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Editor’s note: This is the fourth installment of a multi-part series by MTN Sports on the current state…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19455,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3723],"tags":[7,217,6998,6999,7001,7000,7002,231,772,1544,7003,458,6112],"class_list":{"0":"post-19454","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-college-basketball","10":"tag-lady-griz-basketball","11":"tag-montana-lady-griz","12":"tag-montana-state-basketball","13":"tag-montana-state-bobcats","14":"tag-nate-harris","15":"tag-ncaa","16":"tag-ncaa-basketball","17":"tag-ncaab","18":"tag-tricia-binford","19":"tag-wnba","20":"tag-womens-basketball"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114474234053387443","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19454","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19454"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19454\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}