Hi, friends. It’s March. I’m assuming you’re aware of that, given it’s March 21. But I’m not talking about March, the month. I’m talking about March, the Madness.

The First Four of the women’s NCAA tournament started last night, with No. 16 Presbyterian and No. 12 Vanderbilt advancing to the second round — the round that most people consider the first round. Tonight on ESPN2, No. 11 seed Arizona and Auburn will face off at 7:00pm ET, and No. 16 seeds UT Martin and Holy Cross will meet at 9:00. The true madness will begin tomorrow.

This year, there is significant hype around the women’s tournament. Some — including Shaq — are proclaiming it to be more intriguing than the men’s tournament. Personally, I am not a fan of pitting the tournaments against each other in this way; success is not a zero-sum game, and you don’t need to put down the men’s game in order to exalt the women’s game.

This women’s tournament is set up to be remarkable all by itself, no comparisons needed.

Yes, a lot of that has to do with the “Caitlin Clark phenomenon” as the New York Times dubbed it today. But there’s also Dawn Staley trying to lead her undefeated top-seeded South Carolina Gamecocks to a third championship in the last seven tournaments behind the post play of second-team All American Kamila Cardosa, freshman and SEC tournament MVP MiLaysia Fulwiley, and Te-Hina Paopao, who is shooting a staggering 47.1% from three.

There’s Angel Reese and her star-studded teammates — Aneesha Morrow, Mikaylah Williams, Flau’jae Johnson, and Hailey Van Lith — trying to defend their title despite having one of the most difficult paths in recent history; No. 3 LSU could face No. 6 Louisville in the second round, No. 2 UCLA in the Sweet 16, and No. 1 Iowa in the Elite Eight (!!!!).

Then there’s No. 2 Stanford, led by superstar post players Cameron Brink, a senior playing in her final NCAA tournament, and Kiki Iriafen, a junior named the Pac-12 Most Improved Player of the Year and an honorable mention All American; No. 1 USC, led by Freshman of the Year JuJu Watkins; No. 1 Texas, led by freshman Madison Booker, the Big 12 Player of the Year, second-team All American, and one of the best stories in basketball this season; and No. 2 Notre Dame, led by freshman Hannah Hidalgo, the ACC tournament MVP.

Oh, and there’s also No. 3 UConn, more of an afterthought than they’ve been in decades, but led by the always-dangerous Paige Bueckers, who joined Clark, Brink, Hidalgo, and Watkins on the All American first team.

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Women’s college basketball is undeniably soaring right now, zero qualifiers are necessary.

1. Bracketology has no gender

In my opinion, on Sunday night we got the biggest sign yet that the women’s NCAA tournament has made the transition from March Madness sideshow to co-star. (I am, of course, referring to the perception of the mainstream culture — to many of us reading this newsletter, the women’s tournament is and has been the main attraction.)

On Selection Sunday — which the women have only been a part of since 2022; before that, the women’s bracket was revealed on Monday — CBS, which has exclusive broadcast rights for the men’s tournament, unveiled the men’s bracket at 6:00pm ET. Then ESPN, which airs the women’s tournament, unveiled the women’s bracket at 8:00pm ET. Following the women’s bracket reveal, ESPN had a two-hour show on the schedule merely titled “Bracketology.” I assumed when I saw it on my programming guide that it would be dedicated to the men’s tournament, because that’s how these things usually work — the women’s tournament gets the bare minimum in news coverage, while the men’s tournament gets the deep dives and analysis and all the “extra” that really make sports fun.

But I was pleasantly surprised when I realized it was actually a joint bracketology show featuring analysts and experts on from both the men’s and women’s basketball worlds who alternated between breaking down the two brackets. The show didn’t pit the men and women against each other; it didn’t ask for hot takes about which tournament was going to be better; it merely treated them both like tournaments worth taking seriously, which they are.

Earlier this week, I spoke with Aaron Katzman, a coordinating producer at ESPN who oversees the College Gameday basketball franchise and who worked on the brackcetology show, about this strategy.

He said that discussions about doing a joint bracketology show began a few months ago.

“We’re ESPN, and we celebrate and want to be at the forefront of all college basketball, period,” Katzman told Power Plays. “It just made sense to have it be a combination show. You have a women’s audience that’s been watching for the last hour for the Selection Show. Why not continue that momentum, but not just make it women’s-specific, not just make it men’s-specific, but just make it basketball specific?”

It turned out to be a smart business decision to try to retain the audience from the women’s Selection Show — according to Sports Media Watch, it averaged 1.94 million viewers, making it the most-watched women’s Selection Show in 20 years.

In many ways, the joint bracketology show was a continuation of ESPN’s increased integration of women’s basketball into their programming this season. Prior to 2023, ESPN had only done three women’s College Gameday shows in franchise history. In 2023, ESPN had three women’s Gameday shows. This year, College Gameday did five women’s shows — South Carolina at LSU on a Thursday night in January, then Sunday morning shows at South Carolina, Virginia Tech, and Iowa, followed by a show in Greensboro for the ACC championship game. At LSU, the arena was totally full an hour and a half before the game tipped of. In Blacksburg for the Virginia Tech game, people camped out the night before so they could come watch the Gameday show live.

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“It was it was incredible,” Katzman said. “It’s a growing process and there’s certainly a lot of room for growth on our side, but I think we laid a tremendous foundation and now have a huge ceiling with the show.”

Over the course of this March Madness, ESPN will obviously be talking a lot about women’s basketball, since it is airing the women’s tournament. But it is also looking to involve the women’s tournament in more of its general programming, too.

“We’ll have some men’s Gameday shows during the tournament on weekend mornings, and we are having those discussions about hey, how do we want to bring Caitlin Clark into our discussions? Or, if our show leads into a women’s NCAA tournament game, could we get a pregame interview with a player warming up, or Dawn Staley if it’s a South Carolina game or something like that?

“We’re going all and in on everything we’re doing around the women’s tournament,” he said. “Our goal is to have ESPN to the wall the wall destination for college basketball over the next few weeks.”