Dawn Staley's South Carolina basketball team will earn huge payday

South Carolina basketball coach Dawn Staley leads the best program in the country. The Gamecocks have won three National Championships since the 2016-2017 season (and finished #1 in the Covid-shortened 2019-2020 campaign), while no other program has two titles during that same stretch. Their most recent 'chip came in the form of an undefeated season last year that included a championship game victory over Caitlin Clark's Iowa Hawkeyes.

Finally, the Gamecocks will start getting an additional payday for their massive success.

According to the NCAA Division-I Board of Governors, the collegiate athletics governing body is set to begin postseason revenue sharing in women's basketball soon. Currently in the proposal stage, the plan for this revenue sharing would go into effect for the 2024-2025 NCAA Tournament and would financially reward women's college basketball programs for making the March Madness field each year.

Based on the numbers published by the NCAA following the proposal, starting with the 2025-2026 fiscal year, payouts for revenue sharing would begin at $15 Million, move to $20 Million for 2026-2027, and then to $25 Million for 2027-2028. From there, the revenue sharing number would grow at the Division-I standard of about 2.9% each year.

The final vote on the proposal will come in January.

The funds for the payouts will come from ESPN's recent television contract for the package that contains rights to the women's NCAA Tournament and several other NCAA Championships. $65 Million of the annual contract is set to pay for women's basketball. For big-time programs like South Carolina basketball, the proposal would provide a sizable payday each season as the Gamecocks are among the programs that make the Big Dance every season.

The money will serve as a return on the sizable investment that the University has put into women's basketball in recent years. It will help the South Carolina basketball program become a revenue sport, something that has been deserved for quite some time.