(Editor's note: This is the fourth installment of a multi-part series by MTN Sports on the current state of college athletics. For Part 1, click here. For Part 2, click here. For Part 3, click here.)
MISSOULA — When Tricia Binford, then Tricia Bader, was playing in the WNBA against stars like Cynthia Cooper, Sheryl Swoopes, Lisa Leslie and Rebecca Lobo, the league had a prophetic marketing slogan:
“We got next.”
The WNBA was founded in 1996, and Binford — following an All-Big Sky Conference college career at Boise State — spent five years in the league playing for the Utah Starzz in 1998 and 1999 and the Cleveland Rockers from 1999 to 2002.
“I did play for the Cleveland Rockers when we were nearly selling out those crowds per game. I played at Boise State where we sold out the fieldhouse when we played the (Montana) Grizzlies. There were 11,000 people for that game,” said Binford, who has been the head women’s basketball coach at Montana State since 2005 and recently signed a new four-year contract with the university. “So, I just think there’s more attention on it right now, to be quite honest.”
Women’s basketball has long been popular in pockets around the country, with fans in Bozeman and Missoula generously supporting the programs at Montana State and Montana. But the sport has never garnered more national attention than it’s getting right now.
Television ratings for the NCAA women’s tournament and the WNBA have skyrocketed in recent years. Locally, digital coverage of the MSU and UM women’s teams this past season outdrew coverage of the men’s teams on MontanaSports.com.
Part of that was due to the historic season put together by Binford’s Bobcats, who became the first Big Sky team to win 30 games in a single season, won the outright regular-season title and then edged rival Montana to win the Big Sky tournament championship and advance to the NCAA tournament.
And part of it was just because women’s basketball is in a great place.
“Women’s basketball is growing rapidly. I mean, its viewership across the nation, its attendance, all of those things are exploding, and in a lot of cases in some locations, have surpassed men’s basketball,” Montana coach Nate Harris said. Harris, who earlier in his career spent five years on Binford’s staff at Montana State, was named the Lady Griz head coach in March. He’s been with the program since 2021, serving the first three-plus seasons as an assistant before being elevated to interim head coach after Brian Holsinger abruptly resigned in January.
“Women’s basketball is only going to get bigger. There’s only going to be more fans,” Harris added.
While the game is healthy and more people are taking notice, women’s basketball still plays third fiddle behind college football and men’s basketball when decision-makers establish new rules for the NCAA’s revenue-generating sports. Non-revenue-generating sports (i.e. almost every other collegiate sport) are just along for the ride, as conferences are reshaped ignoring geographical logic, massive TV contracts are negotiated and student-athletes fight for — and earn — more autonomy.
“So much of it is driven by football, but then you have the obviously weird disparity of universities and conferences tend to — again, this is speaking in general — make money off of football, whereas the NCAA as a whole makes its money off their men’s and women’s basketball tournaments,” Harris said. “So, there’s just so many different pieces in play and who makes money here, and it’s become big business.”
Like with any big business, money talks, and it’s continuing to shape the college athletics industry in unforeseen ways, as the line between amateur and professional athletes is seemingly becoming blurrier by the day. President Donald Trump is reportedly establishing a commission to examine the college sports landscape.
Binford said she would like leaders to revisit the transfer discussion. Right now, players are allowed to transfer between schools multiple times without penalty.
They’re also able to profit off their name, image and likeness (NIL), which has created a Wild West at the highest levels of collegiate athletics. The biggest stars, across all sports, are reportedly earning millions of dollars.
To that end, Binford would like to see a financial cap established.
“I’m certainly not the expert on what this all needs to look like, but we need to educate our student-athletes on how to handle finances. I think that needs to be a priority,” Binford said. “When I played in the WNBA, that was one of the first things that they did for us, was talk about retirement plans and how you plan for taxes. And I just think we need to prepare our student-athletes for that. There's a large amount of money that's coming at them very quickly, and I think that there just needs to be some parameters around that.”
“I think NIL is absolutely something that student-athletes deserve,” she added. “It’s just, what does that need to look like at the college level for it to be productive?”
The fact that these topics even need to be addressed in women’s basketball is a testament to how much the game’s visibility has increased over the years. Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese, Paige Bueckers and JuJu Watkins have just as much or more name recognition as prominent men’s players.
“The state of women’s basketball is at an all-time high,” Binford said. “I was at the Final Four (where Bueckers’ UConn squad won the national championship), and it was sold out for all the games. Definitely want to see parity, but it’s incredible times, and it’s really fun to watch. We’ve got a great product.”
It might be time, then, for women’s basketball to update its marketing slogan:
“We got now.”
