NPR’s Scott Simon talks to sports writer Howard Bryant about the opening round of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament and the WNBA’s new collective bargaining agreement.
SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
And now it’s time for sports.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
SIMON: March Madness. How’s your bracket doing? And WNBA players get their payday. Sports writer Howard Bryant joins us. Howard, thanks so much for being with us.
HOWARD BRYANT: Good morning, Scott. How are you?
SIMON: I’m fine. Thanks. Let’s get into the madness.
BRYANT: (Laughter).
SIMON: First round of the NCAA Tournament – big upsets – North Carolina fell to Virginia Commonwealth. And High Point University – it sure is a high point for them – beat fifth seed Wisconsin.
BRYANT: Amazing. And I think one of the fun things – obviously, it’s tournament time, so you know there’s going to be upsets. We know when you look at your bracket, just – even if you don’t know who’s playing when you fill out the bracket, you got to just assume that, you know, one 11-6 game is going the other way, one 7-10, maybe even a 4-13. And North Carolina was the 11-6 that went down. They were the sixth seed. They lost to Virginia Commonwealth after being up by 19 points.
SIMON: Yeah.
BRYANT: The High Point story is hilarious because it’s not just the fact that they won the game. They beat Arkansas. That’s great. And that’s awesome, and that’s fun. But what’s really fun about that story is that the guy who made the winning basket – Chase Johnston – that was his first two-point basket of the entire season. He shot nothing but three-pointers all year. And when it comes game time to win, he actually made a layup. Hilarious.
SIMON: That’s why they go ahead and play the games. Listen, though, Arizona, Florida, Michigan and Duke, you know, have all advanced. Although Duke – No. 1 ranked in the Associated Press poll – really struggled against Siena.
BRYANT: Against Siena. And that was a great game as well. And here’s why that was a great game – one, because Siena was up by 13 at one point. And it was like, are we really going to get another 16-1, which used to be unthinkable, upset. And – but the point is, is that Siena didn’t use a substitution for the entire game. It was the first time since 1979, all five players played, and he did not make a single sub. And they just ran out of gas at the end, and that was sort of too bad because maybe they could have stolen some minutes and pulled off the upset. But that was pretty amazing. You’re watching this game going, are they not – are these kids really going to play all 40 minutes? And they did and almost came up with the upset.
SIMON: The women’s tournament is just getting started. But I think it’s safe to say biggest news in women’s basketball this week is from the pros. WNBA and the Women’s National Basketball Players Association reached a verbal agreement for a new collective bargaining agreement. And ESPN reports the salary cap will start at $7 million. That’s up from 1.5 million, and the minimum salary will be 270,000. This is a welcome development for a league that’s surging in popularity, isn’t it?
BRYANT: Yeah. It’s surging in popularity, and it’s going to be really interesting over the next few years to look at a few things here. One, the players were very aggressive here, and they needed to be. Everything that we’ve been hearing, whether it was the Angel Reese and Caitlin Clark phenomenon or whether we’re talking about the WNBA as a rising – you know just a powerhouse in sports business – if we’re looking at the valuations, that game is growing. But the players weren’t getting their money, and the players weren’t tied to the growth of the game the way the NBA…
SIMON: Yeah.
BRYANT: …Is, the way the sports are. If the league revenue grows up, the salary cap grows up. That wasn’t the fact with the women. It was very paternalistic in a lot of ways. And now you’re going to have the women – their money is going to be tied to the growth of the sport. So to go from a $66,000 minimum salary to 300,000 is huge. To have a $600,000 minimum average salary to, finally, you’re going to get, you know, million-dollar players. You know, the women wore their shirts. Pay us what you owe us.
And I think there was a great deal of consternation that they were being too aggressive. But, you know – but to me, that is also just rooted in this idea that women’s sports isn’t really what it is. But yet those numbers prove that it’s a new game in women’s basketball. And now we’re going to find out, and we’re going to see just how explosive this new powerhouse is going to be.
SIMON: Howard Bryant, thanks so much. Talk to you soon.
BRYANT: Oh, my pleasure, Scott.
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