Women’s basketball is hot as ever, but will March Madness still soar without Caitlin Clark?

You don’t have to inform ESPN senior vice president of production Meg Aronowitz about the challenge of producing the women’s NCAA Tournament without Caitlin Clark the year after she had galvanized the property to NFL viewership heights.

“You never want to be the guy that follows Nick Saban, right?” Aronowitz said, laughing.

There is an interesting duality with the women’s tournament this year. The sport is as hot as ever and includes stars in every corner of America from USC’s JuJu Watkins to UConn’s Paige Bueckers to Notre Dame’s Hannah Hidalgo to Texas’ Madison Booker. Regular-season games were up 3 percent year-over-year across all of ESPN properties — and up an eye-popping 41 percent over 2023. But it will be nearly impossible for ESPN to match last year’s title game viewership between South Carolina and Iowa, a game that averaged an astonishing 18.9 million viewers and peaked at 24.1 million viewers. That was a 90 percent increase from the 2023 title game and a 289 percent increase from 2022 — a unicorn among unicorn ratings.

“It is extremely healthy where women’s college basketball is, but it would take a miracle for the women’s title game to get 19 million viewers again,” said Aronowitz, the point person for ESPN’s women’s basketball coverage. “It’s not beyond reason for it to get 12 (million) if we get the right teams, the right momentum and the right storylines. What we are going to do is make sure that as the audience grows with us from the Selection Show through Tampa, we keep the audience engaged as long as we possibly can.

“But we also have to manage expectations,” she continued. “There is no Caitlin Clark, but there are a lot of incredible student-athletes that we’re going to showcase throughout this tournament, and maybe one of them sets fire and becomes a national sensation. That would be great. We’re going to tell the best stories we can, we’re going to document the games, and we’re going to put the best basketball coverage that we can possibly do on television.”

I’ve written plenty of media-centric women’s basketball pieces over the years and was fortunate to cover women’s college basketball for Sports Illustrated for many years. What’s been particularly evident over the past five years are the resources added by ESPN — a sign that the tournament is a money-maker. AdAge reported the tournament’s total ad sales are up 200 percent from last year alone, and a 30-second ad unit for the championship game is going for around $1 million.

Below is a look at ESPN’s coverage over the next three weeks:

Where can I watch?

ESPN platforms will air all 67 games covered, beginning Wednesday with the First Four. Games will air across ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU and ESPNEWS. There will be select matchups throughout the tournament on ESPN+ and Disney+. The tournament will feature more games on ABC and ESPN than ever before.

When will the title game air?

The final from Tampa will air on ABC sometime shortly after 3 p.m. (ET) on April 6. A one-hour pregame show will take place on ABC beginning at 2 p.m.

What’s new on the broadcasting talent side?

There is one very significant move. The main studio group for ESPN and ABC coverage will be Elle Duncan, Andraya Carter and Chiney Ogwumike, with the possibility of some high-profile coaches popping on later in the tournament. Carolyn Peck will switch to a full-time game analyst role through the regional final. “They’ve obviously galvanized as a group and we’ve done the season of Women’s Game Day with them,” Aronowitz said. “You’re going to see them featured and focused on the studio side and we’ve given the studio team more resources.” Kelsey Riggs Cuff will host a second studio team for the early rounds alongside analysts Muffet McGraw and Megan McKeown. Lisa Mattingly and Violet Palmer will join the studio teams as rules analyst from the Sweet 16 through the final game. For the open Final Four practice day on Saturday, the studio group will be Kelsey Riggs, Peck and Fever coach/ESPN broadcaster Stephanie White.

Have the announcing teams been named?

First, all broadcasters will be on site for the 16 opening round sites. That’s excellent news. This link will give you where each game will air across the ESPN networks. Below are the teams that will call the event.

First- and second-round commentator teams

• Dave O’Brien, Christy Winters-Scott and Holly Rowe (Los Angeles – UCLA)

• Courtney Lyle and Carolyn Peck (Columbia, S.C.)

• Tiffany Greene and Steffi Sorensen (Austin, Texas)

• Eric Frede, Christy Thomaskutty and Holly Rowe (Los Angeles – USC)

• Beth Mowins and Rebecca Lobo (Storrs, Conn.)

• Brenda VanLengen and Andrea Lloyd (Fort Worth, Texas)

• Jenn Hildreth and Kelly Gramlich (Durham, N.C.)

• Wes Durham and Angela Taylor (Raleigh, N.C.)

• Pam Ward and Stephanie White (South Bend, Ind.)

• Roy Philpott and Jimmy Dykes (Baton Rouge, La.)

• Kevin Fitzgerald and Kim Adams (Norman, Okla.)

• Angel Gray and Aja Ellison (Chapel Hill, N.C.)

• Sam Gore and Tamika Catchings (Lexington, Ky.)

• Krista Blunk and Mary Murphy (Waco, Texas)

• Matt Schumacker and Brooke Weisbrod (Columbus, Ohio)

• Jay Alter and Helen Williams (College Park, Md.)

Sweet 16 and Elite 8 commentator teams

• Ryan Ruocco, Rebecca Lobo and Holly Rowe (Spokane, Wash.)

• Pam Ward, Stephanie White and Holly Rowe (Spokane, Wash.)

• Courtney Lyle, Carolyn Peck and Kris Budden (Birmingham, Ala.)

• Beth Mowins, Debbie Antonelli and Angel Gray (Birmingham, Ala.

Final Four and national championship commentator teams

• Ruocco, Lobo and Rowe

When are the First Four games?

Games will start on Wednesday and run through Thursday. Los Angeles (UCLA), Austin (Texas), Chapel Hill (North Carolina) and South Bend (Notre Dame) will serve as the First Four host sites. Here’s the TV schedule:

Wednesday

No. 11 Princeton vs. No. 11 Iowa State, 7 p.m. (ET), ESPNU

No. 16 Southern vs. No. 16 UC San Diego, 9 p.m., ESPNU

Thursday

No. 11 Washington vs. No. 11 Columbia, 7 p.m., ESPN2

No. 16 William & Mary vs. No. 16 High Point, ESPN2

Does the Women’s Final Four have a MegaCast option?

It does. “The Bird & Taurasi Show” returns for its fourth year featuring Sue Bird and Diana Taurasi. The show will be available on ESPN2 and ESPN+ for the semifinal games, then will air on ESPN and ESPN+ for the championship. As in years past, you can expect well-known people from sports and pop culture to appear.

What’s a must-watch game of the opening rounds?

Plenty. But if they both advance in their opening games, No. 6 Michigan vs. No. 3 Notre Dame on Sunday in South Bend would be a fascinating matchup between a program with great freshmen (Michigan) and a title contender (Notre Dame) that has struggled lately.

What’s something interesting happening behind the scenes?

ESPN’s two lead college basketball directors, Jimmy Platt and Mike Roig, will direct all of the regional games. Platt is the current director for the women’s Final Four while Roig is ESPN’s top men’s basketball director. The production has added High Frame Rate (HFR) technology, which provides super slow-motion sequences of key moments in a game or even for viewers. There are also additional shallow–depth–of–field cameras at both locations and those cameras make sports look much like cinema or a video game. (This is what the NFL does with its broadcasters.)

Will the women’s tournament be talked about on other ESPN platforms?

Aronowitz said ESPN as a company has bought into the women’s tournament significantly when it comes to discussing the tournament away from tournament-specific programming. That was something that was not the case years ago.

“My boss, (executive vice president of sports production) Mike McQuade, is a huge proponent for cross-platform promotion for all of our properties, and he firmly believes that the women’s tournament is the most important thing that we’re going to do in March at the company,” Aronowitz said. “You see it with his support, combined with (executive vice president of sports news and entertainment) Dave Roberts, who is a huge women’s basketball fan, and then their direct lieutenants. If anything, the most challenging thing at this point is trying to feed all of the requests that are coming in for people who want our talent on their shows as we start to build toward Tampa. I’ve been doing this a long time, and it’s normally having to fight to get the attention to get some exposure for this sport, and that’s not the case anymore with women’s basketball.”

Where can I read about the tournament?

We have you covered. Bookmark this page for the tournament. “No Offseason: The Athletic Women’s Basketball Show” podcast will have multiple episodes each week during the tournament.

Can ESPN balance the coverage of star players?

Said Aronowitz: “Look, there is always a fear of fatigue in terms of do we talk about them too much. But our audience research tells us that’s what our fans care about and our research also tells us that we’re still getting new viewers only starting to come to women’s college basketball right now. So we need to be able to tell the stories of the stars because those stars in theory people will follow all the way to Tampa. We try to be as balanced as we can. I always remind our team that the journey for most of these teams was to just get to the women’s tournament, and we have to tell those stories too.”

Have a pick to win it all?

South Carolina. It has been phenomenal since the UConn blowout loss — especially the win over Texas in the SEC title game — and I always like it when a power team has a loss in February because I think it makes a team sharper. I can’t see anyone in the Birmingham 2 Region giving the Gamecocks any issues. Then comes the Final Four: UCLA has been great this year, but South Carolina has already played the Bruins (a 15-point UCLA win in December in L.A.), so it’ll be ready for Round 2 if that happens.  I think a South Carolina-UConn final would be a massive viewership game for the sport so that’s something to root for if you are a neutral party who wants to see the sport continue to pop in interest.

(Photo of Ryan Ruocco and Rebecca Lobo: Ethan Miller / Getty Images)