{"id":581509,"date":"2026-04-02T21:54:15","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T21:54:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/581509\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T21:54:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T21:54:15","slug":"womens-basketball-interest-is-up-and-brackets-and-bets-are-on-the-rise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/581509\/","title":{"rendered":"Women\u2019s basketball interest is up, and brackets and bets are on the rise"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\"\"\t\t\tMichael Young, a social studies teacher at Cape Elizabeth High School, with the NCAA Division I women’s basketball tournament bracket he posted at the school. Young started a women’s bracket among faculty at the school and has seen increased participation. (Brianna Soukup\/Staff Photographer)<\/p>\n

Michael Young wanted to try something new. The Cape Elizabeth High School social studies teacher had long participated in a men\u2019s college basketball tournament bracket pool organized by faculty, but he noticed there wasn\u2019t an equivalent for the women\u2019s tournament.<\/p>\n

So in 2023, he got one started, but there was one problem: Faculty members were lining up to submit their men\u2019s brackets, but for the women\u2019s pool, Young had to become a recruiter.<\/p>\n

\u201cI kind of guilted (people) into it,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Young doesn\u2019t have to do that anymore. Three years later, the pool has steadily grown, and now is at 23 compared to 26 for the men\u2019s brackets.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt gets a good vibe. We get people watching the women\u2019s games that ordinarily wouldn\u2019t,\u201d Young said.<\/p>\n

National data indicates that women\u2019s basketball has seen a rise in interest, as viewership numbers show more people tuning in and following the action, which culminates Friday and Sunday with the Final Four and national championship game.<\/p>\n

ESPN reported its first-round broadcasts of the NCAA tournament drew 401,000 viewers, a 9% increase from last year<\/a>. The second round saw 1 million viewers, which is up 3% from last year and second all-time to only 2024, when Iowa star Caitlin Clark became a household name with her highlight-reel passing, flashy ballhandling and seemingly unlimited shooting range while leading the Hawkeyes to the national championship game.<\/p>\n

More people are watching, and more are participating in the sport. ESPN also reported that its Tournament Challenge, the platform on which users can submit their brackets, drew 3.48 million women\u2019s entries, up 1% from last year and 67% from 2023. <\/p>\n

On the betting side, BetMGM last year reported a 35% increase in year-over-year money wagered on women\u2019s college basketball. The sportsbook also said there was a 147% increase in bets on women\u2019s college basketball and a 134% increase in betting handle (the amount of money wagered) between 2023 and 2024, which BetMGM public relations manager John Ewing said is directly tied to the \u201cCaitlin Clark effect.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s really changed the interest in women\u2019s basketball,\u201d he said. Clark is the all-time leading scorer in NCAA Division I basketball \u2014\u00a0men\u2019s and women\u2019s \u2014\u00a0and was the No. 1 pick in the 2024 WNBA Draft. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Iowa guard Caitlin Clark signs autographs after a game on March 25, 2024. Clark became a household name while at Iowa and fan interested in women\u2019s basketball exploded because of her flashy play and scoring ability. (Charlie Neibergall\/Associated Press)<\/p>\n

Fans in Maine say they are seeing that rise in interest for themselves, whether it\u2019s in friends and family members showing more attention to the sport or more opportunities to engage in its games. <\/p>\n

The women\u2019s game still lags well behind the men\u2019s \u2014 ESPN has 26.6 million men\u2019s brackets entered, compared to the 3.48 million for women. But after Clark provided the breakthrough jolt, the sport is continuing to show signs of growth.<\/p>\n

\u201cI still almost get choked up when I see these packed arenas for women\u2019s basketball,\u201d said Blaise Spath, an Auburn resident and retired music teacher at Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School. \u201cI\u2019ve been watching since the days when there would be 75 people in the crowd. To see where it\u2019s come is wonderful.\u201d <\/p>\n

Spath, who has followed women\u2019s basketball since attending the University of Maine in the early 1980s, said he participated in men\u2019s pools at work but lost interest and eventually stopped playing. Around three to four years ago, however, he started doing women\u2019s brackets, testing himself on a sport he knew much better.<\/p>\n

\u201cI realized I had a pretty good understanding and awareness of the women\u2019s game, and who was strong and all that,\u201d he said. \u201cI figured I should try to put that to work.\u201d<\/p>\n

For years, Spath said, a women\u2019s bracket pool \u201cwasn\u2019t really a thing.\u201d But as ESPN\u2019s site began playing up its women\u2019s tournament challenge more, Spath saw the fun in joining up.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor a long time, I was kind of embarrassed to tell people that I was a fan of women\u2019s basketball,\u201d he said. \u201cThere are still the naysayers and the doubting Thomases and all that, but the fanbase has probably tripled, if not more.\u201d<\/p>\n

Skylar Cook has noticed the same dynamic. The Waynflete graduate and Elon University sophomore said she\u2019s gone from a casual to a serious basketball fan, partly because she\u2019s majoring in sports management. She fills out two men\u2019s and women\u2019s brackets \u2014 one with who she thinks will win, one with who she hopes will.<\/p>\n

She used to be irritated by friends who would talk about men\u2019s basketball and dismiss the women\u2019s game.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt still can be (frustrating),\u201d she said. \u201cThe kind of general vibe was \u2018Why are you watching women\u2019s when you could be watching men\u2019s?’\u201d<\/p>\n

Since Clark\u2019s emergence, however, she\u2019s noticed the conversation has changed. Friends who asked her who she picked in her men\u2019s bracket are asking for her thoughts on the women\u2019s tournament as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are definitely more knowledgeable than they used to be, in terms of knowing which players to pay attention to,\u201d she said. \u201cI think the primary motivation is probably betting, but whether they want to admit it or not, I think they do actually just enjoy watching for the sake of watching.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kelly Dubay, a 2009 Windham High graduate and former basketball player for the Eagles, remembers women\u2019s sports not having much of a national presence. She said that isn\u2019t the case anymore, which is why she\u2019s been filling out women\u2019s brackets for the last four years.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt just wasn\u2019t publicized like the men\u2019s was,\u201d said Dubay, who works at MaineHealth and who went to the women\u2019s Final Four in Tampa, Florida, last year. \u201cNow when you go online to fill out a men\u2019s one, it\u2019s easier to see women\u2019s and show them both.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Michael Young, a history teacher at Cape Elizabeth High School, hangs up an NCAA Div. I women\u2019s basketball bracket. (Brianna Soukup\/Staff Photographer)<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not just brackets. Dubay, who grew up going to Las Vegas because her father was stationed in the Air Force there, said she\u2019s noticed that there are more opportunities to bet on women\u2019s basketball than there used to be.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince I\u2019ve been going to Vegas, they have the odds printed out every day of whatever may be happening. I would probably say 95% of the time, there was nothing women\u2019s sports-related in that aspect,\u201d she said. \u201cThe past few years, that has been definitely changing to having access to the women\u2019s odds.\u201d<\/p>\n

At Oddfellahs in Portland, one of the state\u2019s two in-person gambling parlors, Caesars Sportsbook manager Andrew Topham said that\u2019s translated into more betting action on the women\u2019s tournament.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe men\u2019s is still more popular, but there\u2019s definitely been a large growth in the amount of people watching the women\u2019s and betting it, and becoming more familiar with certain players and certain teams,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Topham said the tournament provides betting opportunities that the regular season doesn\u2019t. Men\u2019s basketball, meanwhile, has the same live bet options all season long.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t bet the quarters, you can\u2019t bet the halves,\u201d he said. \u201cBut for the tournament games, you can live bet the games as they\u2019re going on. You can bet quarters, you can bet halves, you can bet player props for some of the (players).\u201d<\/p>\n

Ewing, the BetMGM public relations manager, said the limited regular-season betting options are a \u201cbang for the buck\u201d situation.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have limited resources,\u201d he said. \u201cWould they love to offer every market across the board for every sport, every game? Of course. But at the end of the day, you still have someone that has to monitor and trade on those markets to ensure that they\u2019re working out for the company.\u201d<\/p>\n

More viewers, however, can ensure women\u2019s basketball\u2019s betting presence will only grow.<\/p>\n

\u201cGetting all these games now available, where you can either watch them on TV or streaming, it all kind of goes together,\u201d Ewing said. \u201cIf fans can watch a game, they are more likely to want to wager on it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Michael Young, a social studies teacher at Cape Elizabeth High School, with the NCAA Division I women’s basketball…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":581510,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":["post-581509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/581509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=581509"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/581509\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/581510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=581509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=581509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=581509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}