Why Dawn Staley said women's basketball refused to be held back anymore as March Madness viewership doubles

ALBANY, N.Y. − Women's college basketball is in the midst of a boom of growth, with viewership doubling the early round NCAA Tournament numbers from a year ago.

But South Carolina women's basketball coach Dawn Staley said it's also growing just because it's no longer being held back.

"It's a double-edged sword when it comes to this answer," Staley said Thursday ahead of South Carolina's Sweet 16 game against No. 4 seed Indiana (26-5) on Friday (5 p.m., ESPN) at MVP Arena. "I've said it before that it's been intentional to hold women's basketball back. It's no longer intentional anymore because they see we're bursting at the seams."

As women's college basketball has gained popularity and viewership, Staley has been a proponent of helping to expand the game, including by increasing games shown on TV.

"We just want to be treated as a sport," Staley said. "We just want an opportunity to be seen, and I do feel like there has been − it's been very intentional to put us on TV."

The rise in popularity comes in part thanks to Iowa star Caitlin Clark, whose second-round game against West Virginia set records as it drew 4.9 million viewers on Monday. But the rest of the sport is growing too − a 108% increase in viewership over last year's first two rounds is also thanks to other stars like USC's Juju Watkins, LSU's Angel Reese and UConn's Paige Bueckers.

Those players, as well as teams like South Carolina's 34-0 squad, are making it harder for networks to pass over opportunities to broadcast women's basketball. That's come from inside the sport, Staley said.

"It's pretty cool to see us forcing our way into the space," she said. "I don't think we're going to slow down anytime soon."

Staley said the next step is to get more teams on nationally televised games, rather than the several teams, often the same ones, that are being broadcast now.

"Although we know the teams that are playing on ABC are the most viewed teams, the most popular teams," Staley said. "There's more popular teams out there that we're not broadcasting. I know you have to start somewhere, so I don't mind them starting where they can get the more bang for their buck and grow the game."

Staley said those in the sport have to do a better job of bringing historical players like Pearl Moore and Jackie Stiles into the discussion outside of their records being broken. She added the sport needs to do a better job of producing documentaries on the sport's history.

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"I had to be intentional about what game I was going to watch on any given day," Staley said. "If I feel like that and I'm a women's basketball enthusiast, I know there was access to so many other people, and they've tuned in and they've come into arenas and they've attended games."

Evan Gerike covers South Carolina women's basketball for the Greenville News. Email him at egerike@citizentimes.com or follow him on Twitter @EvanGerike.