The NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament is putting up big numbers.
Ahead of the first round of the women’s tournament on Friday, Disney told ADWEEK that the ad inventory is “well sold,” but there are still some opportunities for advertisers to get involved. This year’s Championship Game, which airs April 5 on ABC, achieved ad rates of $1 million or more for the second year in a row, with the company hitting a new unit high, as at least one 30-second spot went for $1.5 million.
Danielle Brown, svp of sports brand solutions at Disney Advertising, told ADWEEK that pricing for the tournament, which will air across ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPNews, ABC, and streaming, was up double digits percent-wise, crediting the increasing demand, inventory scarcity, and the audience growth as leading to the ad sales achievements.
“We sell a lot of it in the upfront, so when you think about it, if there’s only a last few remaining units left, people are willing to put the money behind it to be a part of that momentous occasion,” Brown said.
Regarding revenue, Brown said the women’s college basketball regular season was up 72% from two years ago, and this year’s tournament was up 134% from the same period.
Brands getting in the game
The 2026 tournament has 151 unique advertisers—84 returning—across 66 total categories. The top categories include credit card and banking, finance and insurance, tech, telco, soft drinks, CPG, travel and leisure, auto, and QSR, according to Brown.
Overall, ESPN has 20 unique sponsors, with Capital One as the presenting sponsor. Intuit TurboTax is a sponsor for the First Four, first round, and second round; Coca-Cola is a sponsor of the Sweet 16; and AT&T is a sponsor for the Elite Eight and Final Four.
Brown noted that ESPN will also lean into streaming, social, and creators during the tournament. Fans can get personalized content feeds through the ESPN app, and creators such as Katie Feeney, who signed a deal with the network last year, will also be involved in content creation.
“[Katie Feeney] is going to be on site at the Final Four and the Championship Game, doing the first-ever creator cam for college basketball,” Brown said. “So she’s going to pick up the sights and sounds of the game.”
In addition, the exec said streaming and programmatic have been an important part of getting advertisers involved in ESPN’s women’s sports offerings. According to Brown, Disney has around 500 advertisers across women’s sports and has been adding about 100 advertisers per year over the past two years.
“A lot of it also has to do with the access points, in terms of advertisers of all sizes being able to access women’s college basketball through ESPN, and they can transact in any way they want, whether that’s a direct deal through automation—because we do have a lot of games across the season on streaming—in addition to our linear networks,” Brown said.
Driving growth
The ad sales news comes shortly after WPP Media released its new Women’s Sports Playbook report, which included several statistics about the impact of women’s sports advertising, including a 79% year-over-year increase in ad impressions for women’s sports and 20% higher engagement with ads than on non-sports broadcast and cable.
According to the report, investment in women’s sports is estimated to be up nearly 70% year-over-year, with the total spend reaching about $127 million.
“The audience is really big in terms of our conversations in the marketplace, and then we’re seeing that effectiveness on the backend,” Brown said. “We’re seeing these games drive search results and drive impact and conversion.”
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