Women's sports booming — and TV networks are just noticing

In a little more than a month, Minneapolis will play host to the women's Final Four. Or, as fans of women's basketball call it, The Final Four.

The event would have been compelling any year. Turns out Minneapolis' timing is impeccable.

Women's sports are having a moment, and that moment might not end. It's a moment far too delayed and deferred, but one that is arriving rapidly and with intent.

This will be the first women's tourney to be allowed to use the marketing phrase "March Madness." After the NCAA embarrassed itself last spring, there is little doubt that the women will be able to use excellent facilities throughout the Final Four this year, unless they have learned nothing.

On Tuesday, ESPN announced that it had sold all of its advertising for the women's Final Four.

Two weekends ago, ESPN reported that it reached 11.1 million viewers with a special edition of "College GameDay" that previewed No. 1 South Carolina against No. 13 Tennessee; NCAA gymnastics; softball; and the U.S. women's national soccer team, with 42% of the viewers being women.

ESPN called it an "unprecedented weekend of premier women's sports events." The ESPN senior vice president of sports brand solutions — that's the ESPNSVPOSBS to you — said in a release that "The spotlight is on women's sports as hidden gems."

Which is true, and self-incriminating.

Gems? Yes. Hidden? Only because television networks like ESPN traditionally ignored or underplayed them.

It's easy to fall into the trap of saying that women's sports are surging. It's more accurate to say they are being more often broadcast and featured.

Last week, the U.S. women's soccer team received a $24 million settlement of its unequal pay lawsuit. That's probably not a just amount, given the excellence and earning power of the team, but it's a step toward equity.

At the Beijing Olympics, the women's hockey final between Canada and the United States drew 3.7 million viewers, more than all but one NHL playoff game other than the Stanley Cup Final.

The WNBA received a boost when two of the greatest players of all time, the Lynx's Sylvia Fowles and Seattle's Sue Bird, decided to put off retirement for at least one more season, and star center Liz Cambage signed with Los Angeles, bringing a large personality to a massive market as the league continues to rise in visibility and earning capability.

On the media side, ESPN bolstered its women's basketball coverage by hiring Alexa Philippou from the Hartford Courant to continue covering the NCAA and WNBA, a smart and telling move.

Women's sports are the growth stock of the sports world, if not the business world. The more they are covered, the more they earn, leading to more coverage and eventually, we can hope, a removal of traditional excuses used to ignore women's sports.

Locally, Whalen has the best recruiting class in program history lined up for 2022-23, and her team continued its late-season surge Sunday with a 94-83 victory over Penn State. The Gophers are 5-4 since Jan. 30 despite starting point guard Jasmine Powell's decison to join the transfer portal, and Sunday they looked like the team they thought they would be, with Sara Scalia and Kadi Sissoko scoring 32 each and Laura Bagwell-Katalinich scoring 16.

The Minnesota Aurora, the new minor league women's soccer team that will play at the Vikings' TCO Stadium, is off to a remarkably fast start in terms of sales and visibility.

There is more good news for Minnesota basketball fans: Paige Bueckers returned to the floor for UConn on Friday after missing 19 games, and she started on Sunday. Bueckers, from Hopkins, was the National Player of the Year in 2020-21 as a freshman.

This year, if Bueckers plays in another Final Four, she will be doing so in her home state. That would be a compelling and marketable story to tell, for those smart enough to recognize its value.