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The Upward Trend For Women’s Basketball With The NCAA’s Lynn Holzman

Guest Lynn Holzman, NCAA
16:28 min watch

Summary

NCAA Vice President for Women’s Basketball Lynn Holzman joins ADU’s Tai M. Brown at the 2024 Women Leaders Convention in Baltimore to discuss the upward trajectory and momentum for women’s basketball. Holzman reflects on the “inflection point” that happened for the sport in 2021, prompting a gender equity report and spurring an influx of investment into women’s basketball. Holzman: “The NCAA was put in a position to lead the way in the sense of owning some of the gaps that existed, turning that into action around investment.” Holzman discusses the 2024 Division I Women’s Basketball Tournament, which set records for attendance, ticket sales, social media engagement and TV viewership, and several innovations around fan engagement and storytelling the NCAA has tapped into to ensure the moment becomes a movement.

The conversation is indexed below for efficient viewing (click the time stamp to jump to a specific question/topic).

  • - Talk to me about the popularity of women's sports in general and women's basketball specifically.
  • - I saw some research that attendance for basketball goes up when there's a star player on a team; people come to see that player. As you think about sustainability for the game and maintaining this momentum, how do you process and think through some of these issues?
  • - You mentioned 2021 as an inflection point. How did it feel to have issues that you knew about internally come out publicly so that you could then begin to officially make progress on them?
  • - So you're happy when that happens.
  • - Educate me on "unit structure" and championships.
  • - If you're in a room with leaders or people who want to be leaders, what are one or two things you tell the to help them be more effective at what they do? 

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