Since becoming the head coach at South Florida in 2000, Jose Fernandez has seen women’s college basketball change a whole lot.
Viewership has increased tremendously, with the 2024-25 slate of games being the most-watched regular season ever on ESPN platforms and the national championship game was the third most-watched ever, drawing a peak audience of 9.9 million people. With that growth in fandom, women’s college basketball earned postseason units for the first time ever last spring. That change was preceded by the tournament finally having all of its postseason games broadcast on national television, being able to use the “March Madness” branding in marketing materials, and striking a new TV deal with ESPN that runs through 2032.
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Quite simply, with the boost in audience and with units being awarded for postseason success, women’s college basketball is now a revenue-producing sport. And money is entering the sport from all different angles — from unit payouts, to NIL deals that can be worth more than a WNBA salary, to direct revenue sharing made possible by the House Settlement.
The latter was the subject of a letter that Fernandez — now the President of the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association — penned to all Division I head coaches this week, a copy of which was obtained by SB Nation.
“What once was an enterprise slow to change is now evolving rapidly — largely at the behest of state legislatures and the courts, and beyond our control. It is unprecedented,” Fernandez wrote. “There has never been a better time or greater need to advocate relentlessly for our sport… Will (revenue sharing) be our next problem or newest opportunity? That depends on how we approach it.”
Fernandez went on to offer some guidance on revenue sharing, advising coaches to educate themselves on their school’s policies regarding Title IX, NIL and agent interactions, and recommended that coaches engage in conversations with their athletic directors and other administrators to seek clarity.
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“You have to know what you’re talking about when speaking with recruits, alumni, donors, etc,” Fernandez wrote.
He then added: “Encourage your institution’s leaders to be transparent with how they will calculate and distribute revenue share among all student-athletes in all sports so that both players and coaches understand who is receiving how much (money) and why. There should be a method of public transparency in what each institution is investing in its women’s basketball program.”
That sort of transparency regarding spending numbers from revenue sharing and NIL is something that fans and media in college sports have long been asking for. What is each school spending on women’s basketball? Is the ACC spending more or less than the SEC? What program is receiving the biggest percentage of revenue sharing funds from their school?
Right now, nobody knows for sure.
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Since the House Settlement was approved by U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken in June, only a handful of Power 4 programs have publicly revealed what they’re spending on each sport. Texas Tech is putting $410,000 towards women’s basketball, Georgia is spending $900,000, and North Carolina’s women’s team — coached by previous WBCA President Courtney Banghart — will receive $250,000.
In most cases, women’s basketball is getting the third biggest piece of the revenue sharing pie at schools that play FBS football, with football and men’s basketball getting a far bigger percentage between seven and eight figures. Even at basketball Blue Blood North Carolina, Bill Belichick’s football team is getting $13 million annually in revenue sharing dollars. At some schools, women’s basketball is fourth or fifth or not even in the equation, with sports like volleyball or baseball taking precedence.
“It’s a zero-sum game, and not everyone is going to be happy,” South Carolina athletic director Jeremiah Donati told CBS Sports earlier this year. “I’ve been very candid with our coaches that it starts with football. It starts with football at this level, it starts with football in the SEC and it’s going to start with football at South Carolina.”
Gamecocks coach Dawn Staley — whose team has won two of the past four national titles — recently said that her players will sign Non-Disclosure Agreements regarding the money they receive.
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Like at South Carolina, it’s unclear how much the women’s basketball program at Fernandez’s USF is receiving from revenue sharing funds. However, USF is in the American Conference, which is the only league to publicly implement a revenue sharing floor. Each American school — except for football-playing Service Academy members Army and Navy — will share at least $10 million with its athletes over the next three years.
Fernandez’s Bulls have made a good case on the court that they should receive some of whatever amount USF comes up with. The Bulls have played in nine of the last 12 NCAA Tournaments, have been ranked as high as 12th in the AP Top 25 Poll in that stretch, and have advanced to the second round of March Madness five times since 2013. As he approaches his 500th career win, Fernandez has turned USF into one of the sport’s most consistent mid-major powerhouses.
The question now is, will his program and others continue to have the funding necessary to stay competitive, or will the disparity between haves and have-nots in women’s basketball become more apparent?
