TAMPA, Fla. — The complaints could not be ignored. From Birmingham, Alabama, to Spokane, Washington, last weekend, some of the most prominent coaches in women’s college basketball took aim at the NCAA’s fairly-new double-regional format.
First to loudly voice his disapproval with the format — where eight teams play a total of six games in the span of four days in one arena — was UConn coach Geno Auriemma, the 71-year-old Hall of Famer who owns 11 national championships. Auriemma’s protests were focused around the availability of court time for practices and shootarounds, which he argues impacts rest and recovery time for players.
“In a normal world, run by normal people, there would only be four teams here,” Auriemma said last Sunday. “Which means we wouldn’t have to get up at 6 a.m. to have an 8 o’clock practice here this morning for an hour. Which means we wouldn’t have to get up at 5 a.m. to have a 7:30 shootaround for half-an-hour. Takes us longer to get through security than to actually be on the court, okay?”
He continued: “The guys, who don’t know shit about shit — according to a lot of women’s basketball people — they finish Sunday and then they have Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and they play Saturday. But there’s a lot of people in the women’s basketball community that think they’re smarter than that. So whoever came up with this super regional stuff — and I know who they are — ruined the game. They did. They ruined the game. Half the country has no chance to get to a game in person. But you’re making billions off of TV. Well, actually you’re not, that would be the men’s tournament. So, yeah, there’s a lot of issues that they need to fix.”
LSU’s Kim Mulkey and Vic Schaefer of Texas were among the coaches who voiced their displeasure with the format too.
However, these coaches and fans of the sport shouldn’t expect the double-regional system to end any time soon. NCAA President Charlie Baker seems to be a fan of the format and said it would be difficult to deviate from it in the immediate future.
“It would be really hard to change it at this point without rebidding the whole thing,” Baker told reporters on Friday during a spontaneous availability in the media workroom in Tampa’s Amalie Arena, which is hosting the Final Four this year.
The NCAA switched the second weekend format of the tournament to just two regional sites instead of four after the 2022 tournament, which had regionals in Greensboro, North Carolina; Bridgeport, Connecticut; Wichita, Kansas and Spokane, Washington. Aside from the Bridgeport regional — played in No. 2 seed UConn’s backyard — no regional final that year drew more than 7,800 fans.
In 2023, the NCAA pivoted to two sites in Greenville, South Carolina and Seattle, Washington. The lowest attended regional final was LSU vs. Miami in Greenville, drawing 7,988 fans. Two of the other regional finals drew more than 11,000 fans. Last year, both regional final games in Albany, New York garnered more than 13,000 fans. This year’s regional finals in Birmingham and Spokane averaged 10,716 fans across four games.
“The main reason the women’s basketball committee went to the two sites was to fill the stands and create a better experience for the kids and to drive attendance,” Baker said. “And they accomplished both of those objectives. Attendance numbers have been much higher the last few years, and the kids really enjoy a packed house.”
Currently, the double-regional format is set through 2028 with sites already booked. The 2026 regionals will be in Fort Worth, Texas and Sacramento, California, the 2027 games will be in Philadelphia and Las Vegas, and the 2028 regionals will be hosted by Washington, D.C. and Portland, Oregon.
“There are a lot of coaches that do (like the double regional format),” Baker said. “Ask Dawn Staley about it. See what she says.”
Baker is right. While the Gamecocks’ coach did lament the shootaround and practice times, she — like Baker does — seems to believe that the double-regional is good for fans of the sport.
“You don’t get a shootaround time at a reasonable hour. Other than that, I mean, I actually like the two regions. I like having seven other teams that’s trying to advance to the Elite Eight and advance to the Final Four right in one place,” Staley said. “I do think it allows our fans, fans of women’s basketball, to gravitate to one spot. I know the attendance will be up because of it. So, bottom line, we need to drive revenue as much as possible.”
Indeed, ratings for the women’s NCAA Tournament are better than ever. After the Iowa vs. LSU Elite Eight clash and Iowa vs. South Carolina national title game shattered viewership records last season, the audience has remained even as Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese have moved on to the WNBA.
This year’s Elite Eight was the second most-watched on-record as the four games averaged 2.9 million viewers, which is up 34 percent from the 2023 tournament. LSU vs. UCLA peaked at 4.4 million viewers. That’s good news for women’s basketball teams in the tournament, who are earning units for the first time this year.
Regarding the recent attendance figures and those viewership stats, LSU’s Kim Mulkey believes the NCAA moved into the double-regional system too quickly and could still thrive in the same way in a traditional four-site format.
“We sold our soul too early. This game has gotten better. And, man, if you still had four regionals, can you imagine the attendance? I know our fan base. They can’t afford to come to Spokane. But they could if it was a little bit closer,” said Mulkey, the winner of four national championships. “We need to fix this. We don’t have to wait until the contract’s up. Let the people keep their super regionals. Just go add two now. I’ve never ever been one to believe that you can’t work things out if it’s better for the game.”
Baker added that the women’s basketball committee talks about the regional format on a “pretty regular basis” and said the topic would be broached again when the committee meets after the Final Four.
“If they believe there’s an option that would create the same fan and student athlete experience, I’m sure (the committee will) take that into consideration,” Baker said.
Texas coach Vic Schaefer — who became just the fifth coach in the sport’s history this week to take two different programs to the Final Four — has been grumbling about the format ever since it began.
“Seems to me like there could be better organization and better planning all around. This is not it, as I would tell my kids,” Schaefer said. “But (Mulkey and Auriemma) are right. You got to get (the players) up at 7 in the morning for a 30-minute shootaround at the most important time of the year. There’s eight teams here, it’s problematic.”
