The Pulse: Why more people watch women's basketball (2024)

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Good morning! A jam-packed newsletter today. No time to waste:

The Final Word: What the viewership numbers really mean

Let’s get this out of the way first: The men’s national championship game between UConn and Purdee averaged 14.8 million viewers, a teeny uptick from last year’s modern low of 14.69 million viewers — and four million fewer than Sunday’s women’s title game.

This is a huge talker this week. Let’s parse some reasons why these numbers are what they are:

• In college, the women’s game is simply a better product than the men’s right now. And I’m not talking about the on-court play — y’all can argue about that — but the level to which we can invest in the personalities and stories. .
  
• Think of it like any TV show you love. In the women’s game, we’ve spent years — sometimes even four or five — with these superstar players. Game after game, episode after episode, building parasocial relationships with the best players in the sport. On the men’s side, the superstars largely aren’t even here, and when they are, we spend maybe 10 or 15 meaningful games with them. It’s hard to build momentum that way.
  
• Another huge factor: exposure and investment. Women’s players have always stayed longer, but it wasn’t until recently that ratings changed, as our Richard Deitsch pointed out. Platform is important — the women’s title game was on ABC, while the men’s was on TNT/TBS/truTV. Also, NIL is a factor — Caitlin Clark is on our screens 24/7. That helps.
  
• This is not a bad thing for anyone. It’s the reality of the larger landscape in both men’s and women’s basketball. Everyone is making money, and the game is more equitable than ever.

Maybe that changes next year when top recruits Cooper Flagg and Khaman Maluach arrive at Duke, but those guys are almost surely one-and-dones, too, right? Or maybe we actually get a challenger for UConn next season and, of course, maybe that’s Duke. And maybe this all changes with Clark gone, though the women still have Paige Bueckers, JuJu Watkins and Flau’jae Johnson.

Anyway. Moving on:

Allow Me to Reintroduce Myself: Porziņģis’ reinvention tour

Kristaps Porziņģis is just 28, but has already embodied so many NBA archetypes.

In the beginning he was a 7-foot-2 wunderkind superstar, setting Madison Square Garden crowds ablaze as a rookie. He then turned into something of a talented journeyman, playing for mediocre/bad teams while worrying about the arc of his career. Would he become an empty stats vehicle, a gifted offensive player not valued by any contender?

The answer was no, as Jay King chronicles in a great piece today on the resurgent Porziņģis, an offseason Celtics acquisition who has helped Boston become the best team in the league. How? Porziņģis became a simp for data:

• A trade from Dallas, where his pairing with Luka Dončić failed, to Washington brought clarity to Porziņģis, who sought help on how to become a better — and importantly, more efficient — post player.
  
• He found his answer in advanced analytics, which ironically were why he’d lost favor in Dallas. As then-Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle had said, the numbers showed the Mavs risking points every time they allowed Porziņģis to post up on offense. It was a big reason they moved him.
  
• So he listened. He stopped shooting fadeaways in the post, especially against smaller defenders. He committed to limiting his dribbles down there — the numbers showed that multiple dribbles usually ended poorly for him. He and his personal coach, a former Latvian national squad teammate, eliminated about 50 percent of the unnecessary moves from Porziņģis’s game.

The success has translated, for both Porziņģis and team. Porziņģis became an unguardable force in Washington, though few noticed because the team was so bad. Boston did though, and now the ninth-year veteran is one of the most efficient post-up players in the NBA, playing for its title favorite.

The full article is worth a read today, including a fascinating history on how Porziņģis found his way to the numbers — and how stubborn he was before doing so. Now don’t be surprised when you see him terrorizing Eastern Conference defenders in a couple of weeks.

News to Know

Holliday gets the call
File this under things that probably should’ve happened already: The Baltimore Orioles are calling up Jackson Holliday, ranked No. 1 on Keith Law’s prospect list, to the big leagues. The shortstop is just 20, but has obliterated Triple-A pitching this year after a red-hot spring training. See the full scouting report on him here. I’m so excited to watch him play.

Wait, 6 HR in 7 AB?
Wake Forest first baseman Nick Kurtz had a bad start to the season. An injury plus the yips gave pause to many who watched the top MLB prospect closely. All those fears are gone now: Kurtz has homered six times in his last seven at-bats, capped by two homers last night against Coastal Carolina. It feels impossible. Read more on Kurtz’s infernal hot streak here.

Calipari officially announces exit
Kentucky coach John Calipari said in a video yesterday that he is leaving the program, adding that Kentucky “probably needs to hear another voice.” Everything points to Calipari taking the vacant Arkansas job, though that’s still not official. It’s rare to see a program icon depart on such weirdly amicable terms, even while he still has plenty of coaching ahead of him. Nice?

More news

• Also announcing an exit: Stanford women’s coach Tara VanDerveer, the winningest coach in college basketball’s history.
  
• We saw two entertaining draws in the Champions League quarterfinals yesterday. See the best goals from each game.
  
• A judge ruled that Grizzlies star Ja Morant acted in self-defense when he punched a teenager in 2022.
  
• Chiefs superfan “Chiefsaholic” was ordered to pay $10.8 million in damages to a bank teller he threatened with a gun.
  

Fails You Need to See: A Tuesday two-fer

Yesterday was a day of failure in two sports. The clips below were so painful, yet so hilarious, that I simply could not choose only one.

Our first comes from MLB, where we are somehow still talking about the bad new jerseys. Just look at how the new pants — which have already been decried for being see-through — ripped as Tigers outfielder Riley Greene slid into home:

the pants seam different this year pic.twitter.com/L1733yVAqd

— Codify (@CodifyBaseball) April 9, 2024

Next up are the Chicago Bulls, who somehow produced this out of a three-on-zero fast break:

This fast break by the Chicago Bulls was something else…

🎥 @BleacherReportpic.twitter.com/RArHCOT9sN

— The Athletic (@TheAthletic) April 10, 2024

Take a bow, everyone. Let’s hope the Bulls got that out of the way before the Play-In. That might be the dumbest basketball play I’ve ever seen.

Watch This Game

NHL: Golden Knights at Oilers
8:30 p.m. ET on TNT
Edmonton has its playoff spot sewn up, and Vegas is close to clinching, but I want to watch the defending champs here. It has not been the season they envisioned, yet the good feelings have returned recently.

NBA: Timberwolves at Nuggets
10 p.m. ET on ESPN
Just a huge, huge game, both for seeding purposes (these two are tied atop the Western Conference) and for testing the temerity of a Minnesota team still missing Karl-Anthony Towns.

Pulse Picks

We’ll have a ton of Masters coverage tomorrow, but for now, peep our slickly designed Masters 2024 Big Board, with scouting reports on each player.

Catch up on some early-season baseball with our latest MLB Power Rankings. We’re not ready to crown the Red Sox just yet.

Ian Mendes traveled to Salt Lake City for one reason: to find out why Utah Jazz owner Ryan Smith is hellbent on bringing an NHL team to SLC.

Most-clicked in the newsletter yesterday: Next year’s men’s college basketball top 25. As mentioned above, Duke should be really, really fun.

Most-read on the website yesterday: Cristiano Ronaldo is having a weird time in Saudi Arabia. Tim Spiers asks: What is he even doing?

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