Here’s why the crowds were low for Texas, Michigan & UConn NCAA Tournament games
Because it’s women’s basketball.
Don’t make this more complicated than it needs to be, because the above, callous, answer usually covers a lot.
The NCAA basketball tournament’s second-ever visit to Dickies Arena in Fort Worth concluded on Monday night featuring two of the biggest brands in college sports; the place was maybe 70% full for the finale in an arena that seats 13,300 for basketball. And one of the team’s main campus is three hours south in Austin.
With a little more than two minutes remaining in the game, No. 1 seed Texas led No. 2 seed Michigan 74-36. This was a 2-2 game early in the first quarter, and after that high point the drama was dead, as UT advanced to the women’s Final Four for the second straight year.
This is going to be perceived as a sexist rip on women’s basketball. It’s not. It’s a statement of where the sport is; too much of the product is still inferior, and lopsided; the struggle to sell tickets, save for a small sampling of games, is a beast.
The Caitlin Clark effect was not a myth, and there is no substitute for an organic creation that can consistently bust 3-pointers from 30 feet.
The Fort Worth “regional” of the 2026 women’s basketball tournament offered the best of the sport: UConn, as well as Texas, Notre Dame, North Carolina and Michigan playing in one of the best arenas in America. The crowds reflected none of that. If the games averaged 5,000 fans, check the calculator’s batteries.
The most interesting part to the Fort Worth region wasn’t a game, but Connecticut coach Geno Auriemma pulling a Geno when he sounded off on this format that jammed in eight teams. While some of his concerns and complaints have merit, particularly the gripes about playing with new basketballs on new rims, it underscores the real problem in planning this tournament.
Namely, it’s still small, and it’s still in the “Let’s see if this works” phase.
During Geno’s meeting with the media on March 28 he said, “Does anybody who makes these decisions ever ask the coaches and the players, ‘Hey, does this work? Do you guys do this during the regular season? Is this normal?’”
If they do ask, they’re just being nice. Or, more likely, they’re not listening. Because the answers could interfere with selling tickets, or whatever broadcast warden ESPN wants.
This year was the second time Dickies Arena hosted NCAA Tournament games; the first was in 2022, for the first two rounds of the men’s tournament. Just a slight difference.
That subregional included Kansas, Baylor, North Carolina, Creighton and Marquette. The place was packed, particularly for the North Carolina second-round game against Baylor for a great afternoon that was the best of the sport.
Aside from some quiet complaints about the NCAA’s COVID-19 protocols for people sitting around the court, no one offered anything other than positive reviews.
For this NCAA women’s tournament in Fort Worth, other than Notre Dame’s three-point win over Vanderbilt in the Sweet 16, the rest of the games at this site were snore fests. Games that still are too typical of the NCAA women’s tournament where the higher seed seldom loses.
The sport is still years away from drawing the casual fan to the arena.
The NCAA has tried various models for this tournament to make it more attractive to draw fans, and the results are spotty. The Final Four sells out, the rest are hit and miss.
The coaches, and the NCAA, want the games to be played at neutral sites, but that trade for “fairness” sacrifices a potential bigger draw at a high seed’s home arena. The NCAA should go back to that format.
As much as the game has improved, and grown, this is a niche sport that will continue to experience these types of pendulous growing pains for the next decade-plus.
When the Texas Longhorns are in Fort Worth to play a game with a chance to go to the Final Four, and don’t come close to filling up the arena, it is not an indictment on the game but rather an accurate progress report.
This story was originally published March 31, 2026 at 5:00 AM.
