NCAA finally awarding units for women’s tournament games, but money is way less than men
For all the South Carolina victories since Dawn Staley took over — the 42 NCAA Tournament wins, half-dozen Final Fours and three national titles — the monetary reward has been largely missing.
Attendance at Colonial Life Arena balloons. The university invests more money into the program. Staley and her staff earn bonuses and raises. But, unlike in men’s basketball, NCAA Tournament success is not a cash cow.
You see, the men’s NCAA Tournament — buoyed by a multi-billion-dollar TV deal with CBS and Turner — has long paid conferences for every March Madness game that includes one of its programs. The conferences then distribute that money to its member schools.
Every game a school plays in earns its conference a “unit.” During the 2024 NCAA Tournament, according to Sportico’s data, those units were about $2 million each, paid out over a rolling six-year period. So when the South Carolina men’s basketball program tipped off against Oregon during last year’s tournament, it earned the SEC $2 million and itself (back when the SEC had 14 schools) nearly $143,000.
That adds up. With eight SEC team making last year’s tournament — and Alabama advancing to the Final Four — the SEC collected 16 units that amounted to about $32 million, or about $2.3 million for every school. It should be noted, there are no payouts for the national championship game.
The payout of units, though, only existed in the men’s NCAA Tournament. So if Staley and South Carolina — participants in 39 non-national championship NCAA Tournament games — would have earned the SEC roughly $78 million if they were in the men’s tournament.
Instead, they earned nothing. That will change this year.
Units for women’s basketball
The NCAA — a year after it sold the next eight women’s NCAA Tournaments to ESPN for $65 million annually — announced in January the creation of the financial rewards — or “units” — for the women’s March Madness games. The caveat: The numbers are much, much smaller.
For the 2025 tournament, the fund totals $15 million. That will jump to $20 million next year and then $25 million for the 2027 NCAA Tournament. After reaching the fully-funded amount of $25 million, the funds will grow at 2.9% — the same rate as every other Division I fund.
Those funds, it should be noted, will be paid out to conferences on a rolling three-year basis. Basically, you’ll always be earning money for the previous three year’s tournaments.
So what does the math look like?
Well, there are 132 possible units and, for this year, a $15 million pool of money. That means each unit is worth a little less than $115,000 — or, about 17 times smaller than the men’s tournament unit. When distributed to the SEC, each of its 16 schools collect just over $7,000 each per unit.
In other words, it would take the SEC collecting about 72 units for South Carolina to pay the fine ($500,000) the next time students decide to topple the hedges and rush onto the Williams-Brice field. And, hey, this has a nice head start because 10 SEC teams made the field, guaranteeing double-digit units.
If South Carolina were to win five games and advance to the national championship game — remember, there is no unit awarded for the title game — the Gamecocks would earn five units. That amounts to $575,000 for the SEC and $36,000 for just USC.
Now, those numbers will increase. When the units are fully funded in 2027 and beyond, each will be worth about $190,000. In those years, a Gamecocks’ national title run would provide $950,000 to the SEC and just under $60,000 to the Gamecocks.
That might not be the world-shattering numbers that are going to bridge the equity gap, in college basketball, but it does at least mark a starting point.
Columbia NCAA games schedule
Friday
▪ 1:30 p.m.: No. 8 Utah (22-8) vs. No. 9 Indiana (19-12), ESPN2
▪ 4 p.m.: No. 1 South Carolina (30-3) vs. No. 16 Tennessee Tech (26-5), ESPN
Sunday
▪ Time and matchup TBD
This story was originally published March 19, 2025 at 3:12 PM.
