The Women’s NCAA Tournament is scheduled for broadcast network exposure for the first time since 1995.
ABC is scheduled to carry at least six Women’s NCAA Tournament games, according to an ESPN advance schedule, starting with a doubleheader on the opening day of play — Sunday, March 21. The network would carry additional doubleheaders during the Sweet Sixteen on Saturday, March 27 and Sunday, March 28. No game in the women’s tournament has aired on broadcast since CBS last carried the national championship in 1995.
The NCAA announced Friday that the entire women’s tournament would take place in Texas, primarily San Antonio. That follows the decision to hold the entire men’s tournament in the state of Indiana, primarily Indianapolis.
The opening rounds would take place March 21-24, followed by the Sweet Sixteen on March 27-28 and Elite Eight on March 29-30. The Women’s Final Four would be Friday, April 2 and Sunday, April 4, as originally scheduled.
If played, this year’s tournament will be the first in which every game airs in its own separate national television window. Last year’s tournament would have held that distinction had it not been canceled. The last time the tournament took place two years ago, games aired regionally in the first two rounds.
ABC had been set to ramp up its women’s college sports coverage last year, but the cancellations of all spring and summer NCAA tournaments changed those plans. The network was scheduled to carry the NCAA women’s gymnastics national championship last April and some Women’s College World Series games last May before those events were wiped out. It should be noted that ABC would not have carried any games of last year’s women’s basketball tournament had it been played.
[News from ESPN advance schedule, NCAA 2.5; h/t Magno Gomes/Twitter 2.5]
