Dawn Staley simply completed leading South Carolina’s unbeaten season and seeing completion of Caitlin Clark’s record-breaking college profession– and she believes females’s basketball is just getting going.
“I think we are in a moment … from a place where our game has been held back to now it’s at a place where it’s bursting through the seams … I think it’s going to get better and better,” she informed CNBC on Tuesday.
The Hall of Fame coach and previous gamer led the Gamecocks to their 3rd championship game and the very first best season in their history as they beat Clark and Iowa previously this month. The match, broadcast on ESPN, was the most-watched basketball video game at any level given that 2019, according to Nielsen.
On Tuesday, Staley and the Gamecocks paid another check out to a nationwide phase– this time, the New York Stock Exchange to sound the opening bell to commemorate their championship game win. The look is simply another example of how females’s sports reached brand-new heights this year as basketball drew record-breaking audiences, in no little part due to Clark’s pursuit of the college basketball scoring record and South Carolina’s quote for an unbeaten season.
The New York Stock Exchange invites University of South Carolina Women’s Basketball on April 16, 2024, in acknowledgment of its 2024 NCAA NationalChampionship To honor the event, Dawn Staley, Head Coach, and Kamilla Cardoso, 2024 MOP, Women’s Final Four, signed up with by Sharon Bowen, Chair, NYSE, ring The Opening Bell ®.
NYSE
Clark was selected initially in the Women’s National Basketball Association draft Monday night, and her arrival to the Indiana Fever has actually currently raised ticket costs throughout the U.S.
Staley indicated the Gamecocks as an example of why schools must purchase females’s sports.
“I hope every school or university treats women’s sports like South Carolina,” she stated. “They invest in my salary, they invest in student athletes … and we’re here.”
Staley, who is the second-highest-paid coach in females’s college basketball, has a wage of $3.1 million per season, and made a reported $680,000 more in benefits following South Carolina’s champion.
” I believe now is the time [schools] are seeing there is a return on your financial investment when you put into our video game,” she stated.
Staley likewise assessed Clark’s result on females’s basketball, not just through drawing brand-new audiences to the sport, however likewise by appearing on platforms such as “Saturday Night Live.”
“Caitlin Clark is a superstar. I credit her for raising the level and we need to thank her for that,” Staley stated.
