TikTok on the clock

The GIST: A U.S. ban on social media app TikTok is set to go into effect Sunday, which will have broad repercussions across the sports landscape. While major media networks may be minimally affected by the ban, casual sports fans and content creators — especially women athletes — will feel the loss. ISTG.

For big brands: Sports teams and media companies appear prepared to pivot, with ESPN and Overtime making the most of their remaining time on the platform. For many of these major brands, fandoms were cultivated before the TikTok era, meaning they expect to continue seeing high engagement on alternative platforms like X and Instagram.

For women’s sports: However, this isn’t the case for TikTok content creators, who have flourished with the app’s widespread U.S. usage. The ban will disproportionately affect women athletes — like Livvy Dunne or Angel Reese — due to their brand-building prowess and high engagement rates on the platform.

• Likewise, it’s hard to imagine the rise of rugby star Ilona Maher without TikTok, although Maher has diversified her social media presence enough that she isn’t too worried about losing just one platform. Definitely not a problem.

For fans: While avid (and older) sports fans may remain largely unaffected by the ban, it will likely hit younger digital natives the hardest. At least 86% of Gen Z fans interact with sports content on social media, with 49% finding new sports that way. The app’s unique algorithm exposed users to a wide variety of content, reaching both avid and casual sports fans.

Looking ahead: Other social media apps — like Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook — do have their own built-in video platforms, but none utilize TikTok’s randomized algorithm. This limits content creators from reaching potential fans outside their usual parameters and prevents casual sports fans from being exposed to wide-ranging sports content. Striking out.

The GIST: The College Football Playoff (CFP) National Championship isn’t the only significant collegiate event on Monday — the inaugural Coretta Scott King Classic (CSKC), a first-of-its-kind women’s basketball doubleheader, will air on Fox ahead of CFP kickoff.

• Holidays tend to draw outsized sports viewership, so it’s smart to hold both these events on Martin Luther King Jr. Day to provide an ideal opportunity for networks and advertisers to activate. A lay-up.

The Coretta Scott King Classic: Created in partnership with Fox Sports, Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment, Playfly Sports, and The King Center, this four-team event features top women’s basketball programs Baylor, Maryland, Texas, and UCLA. The teams will play at Newark, New Jersey’s Prudential Center, a 16K-seater venue home to NHL and PWHL teams.

• Notably, this is the first sporting event to license the names of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his wife Coretta Scott King. The tournament intends to align the championing of women's sports and equity with the mission of Mrs. King, a dedicated civil rights activist who advocated for women’s equality.

The trend: There’s been a rise in brands creating tentpole events around women’s basketball games, including the Ally Tipoff, Aflac Oui Play, and SharkBeauty’s Women’s Champions Classic. The added benefit is that the CSKC has direct ties to Mr. and Mrs. King, which will help cement its presence on the MLK Day holiday for years to come.

• And airing the CSKC is a major win for Fox, which recorded an average 3.39M viewers for a Caitlin Clark game last season and an average of 2.2M viewers for UConn–USC in December. Fox may not have women’s March Madness rights, but it can build around the CSKC.

The opportunity: The NFL and the NBA are no strangers to the benefits of holiday viewing as they pull massive viewership (and ad spend) on major holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas. But sports also capitalize on smaller holidays, like the NHL’s Presidents’ Day doubleheader or the Winter Classic played around New Year’s.

• While it’s tough to compete with simultaneous sporting events (the CFP semifinals dented this year’s Winter Classic viewership), headlining matches often bump viewership before and after a game. However, there’s historically been an uneven dynamic — women’s sports often play lead-in to primetime men’s sports events. No need for warm-ups.

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The GIST: It’s been a year since the NCAA extended its ESPN media rights partnership, which includes coverage of the women’s March Madness tournament. While women’s college hoops fans wanted it to have a separate media deal like the men’s, the tourney has still been able to make meaningful progress toward getting its athletes paid. Cha-ching.

The money: On Wednesday, NCAA Division I members unanimously approved a prize pool to financially reward women’s March Madness teams for their tournament performance. The men’s tourney has benefited from a similar “units” system for years, but the NCAA was waiting for a new TV contract before implementing it in women’s hoops.

• The pool will contain $15M in 2025, $20M in 2026, and $25M in 2027, which means each “unit” will be worth around $113K this season. Though the total amount is much lower than the men’s $226M 2024 pot, both tournaments set aside a similar percentage of their media rights deal for the prize pool.

The ad inventory: In December, ESPN sold out all ad inventory for the 2025 women’s March Madness championship game three months before tip-off. It also announced 156% growth in the tournament’s advertising revenue for 2025, while its advertising value was deemed level with the NFL’s Divisional Round games or the NBA Finals.

Zooming out: Media rights have been the most critical facet in growing women’s sports: Putting sports on TV allows fandoms to thrive, resources to soar, and the game’s ecosystem to develop. And although grouping women’s March Madness with other NCAA tournaments didn’t seem ideal to some, the deal has allowed the game to grow in key ways.

• And this growth should help the women’s tournament eventually become a standalone product. Brands like Samsung are already looking to activate specifically around the event, especially since women’s March Madness viewership was higher than the men’s in 2024. Wait for the signal.

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