Tampa, Fla. – Elle Duncan remembers that he was printed by Virginia Tech. In February 2024, the ladies’ basketball edition of ESPN’s College Gameday – of which Duncan is the host – to Blacksburg, Cassell Coliseum in Virginia to broadcast an action for thousands of fans of Hokies, early to get a place in the crowd behind the Gameday set. They were loud, noisy and proud and offered a worthy environment for Gameday prior to the nationally arranged Hokies’ Matchup with the North Carolina Tar Heels.
And then, this last season, Duncan, Andray Carter and Chiney Ogwumike went to Reynolds Coliseum on the North Carolina State University campus in Raleigh. Duncan had to adjust her rankings of her top locations that she did the show.
“I think we are wise to choose where we are going.” Virginia Tech was great for me. It was crazy. They stood in line earlier. “
Fans placed outside the historic sand the night before the competition. NC State Coach Wes Moore greeted those passionate supports with free donuts on Sunday morning, hours before the Wolfpack nr. 1 Notre Dame sent in double overtime for a sold -out audience. For that epic game, the same fans bought an incredible energy as a background for College Gameday.
“That was my favorite. Do I have to say that?” But going there was great. “
College Gameday is one of the iconic brands of ESPN. The football version of the show started in 1987 and started to go on the road in 1993 and was transformed in the Gameday that fans are now known, where Lee Lee Corso is linked at the end of the broadcast of the event. The coach will retire this season, while Gameday is running the page with new personals such as Pat McAfee and Nick Saban as stars.
In 2005, ESPN took the blueprint for the selection frame feet -Grame -Show and applied it to men’s basketball. Between that opening season of the show EN 2021, Gameday took only twice to a women’s basketball: a Notre Dame at Uconn Clash in 2010 and a Vanderbilt at Tennessee Matchup in 2011.
Eventually, in 2022, the show came back to the basketball of the women’s college, which coincided with a time when the Fandom of the sport began to bloom. There was one show in 2022, three in 2023, five in 2024 and four this last season. A fifth show was deemed last year, but the game was canceled Ow to Snow.
As the show has returned, grew and created its own loyal and avid audiences, the staples of it – Duncan, Carter and Ogwumike – have a Bechter in themselves and have developed in many respects into the faces of women’s basketball at ESPN.
“It was great,” said Carter. “I am very happy that they have bought us together again. We have had to keep the energy a bit and have that momentum. We are really good friends, so it’s not as if we lose contact and to find out together and to find this natural chemistry again. Together we have all the things we have already spoken about, and we all have jokes that we can make, and this energy that never leaves us.
When they break Xs and OKs or discuss the person of players and coaches in the air, Duncan, Carter and Ogwumike might disagree with a few things. But when it comes to the future of the basketball adaptation of the Women’s College of College Gameday, they all agree on one fundamental thing.
They want more.
“We hope for even more, right? The hope is that we will just do more of it,” says Duncan. “I definitely think there is a desire. The sponsorship is there. So it’s really just about logistics. But that has always been our hope, just to try more, but scale in a way that makes sense.”
Carter adds: “More shows, bigger crowds, more things.”
And Ogwumike: “There is a companion in the basketball inside where we all uplift each other that I think vray special and vray is unique. So the goal is to have more gamedays.”
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Photo by Cindy Ord/Getty Images
This season there were 16 broadcasts from Heren College Gameday with 10 of those from locations on location. The men’s show started on January 11 from ESPN’s Studio in Bristol, Connecticut, while the first of the four women’s shows were not broadcast until February 16-a two hours special for UConn in South Carolina in Columbia.
Hosts of the surrender of the ladies of College Gameday know that they don’t have much about the control, but to help the sport and the show grow, they were happy to start starting in the calendar much earlier.
“I am the wrong person to ask,” Carter says laughing. “If you harmed me, we should do that.
Carter, for the former striking player in Tennessee, has work at ESPN in Varyus roles in the past serious years. In addition to her duties as a Studio analyst for Women’s College Basketball and the WNBA, she has been a sidelines for SEC -football matches and also has to regulate Gameday men’s college.
In addition to seeing the Gameday of Ladies taking place more often and start earlier in the season, she also hopes that it will be more related to the version version that is seen in men’s basketball and football, while it is not so much to broadcast live from the greatest game of the week.
“Many times are our shows like shows, where the right goes into play.” I think it is a little more moving of that space – a show instead of a pregame show – and fans come to get there, find more windows and also have more shows. It is clear that as Sumone that the men’s college does Gameday, since we do that than there are Sunday that we do women. “
Duncan adds: “Is this a show that is better served as a preacha for a game that will be on SPN, or better served as a standing show, as it is with the men?
All Gameday shows for women, for example, led this season to a game that was broadcast by one of the networks in the ESPN family, whether ESPN, ESPN2, ABC, the SEC network or the ACC network was. That is true that 12-off-13 Ladies College Gameday shows since 2022, with the only exception made for a scented matchup between Ohio State and Caitlin Clark’s Iowa on March 3, 2024 that was broadcast on Fox.
In the meantime, the Gameday of Voetbal last season went live from the locations of five games that were not broadcast on ESPN platforms. The football show has always pursued the big story, regardless of the conference and where the game is also broadcast.
That increases a frustration of Ogwumike, which points out that Gameday did not show this season from Los Angeles, the home of two of the top programs in the country and two of the best players. USC’s Juju Watkins was the consensus National Player of the Year, while Lauren Betts UCLA brought to his Finst Finst Four appearance.
“We begged to go to LA,” says Carter. “USC or UCLA are Obious those we absolutely like to do.”
But both schools play in the Big ten, where their games are broadcast by NBC and Fox. Another argument is that Big Ten -Scholen usually do not play on Sunday SEC and do ACC teams and when the Gameday is usually broadcast for ladies. However, USC and UCLA played last season to combine seven Big Ten Home matches on Sunday. There are opportunities for Gameday to go to the city of Engelen.
“Okay, I’m on my agenda, my little high horse now,” Ogwumike begins. “I really wanted this the year in which we had basketball in Los Angeles. Was lobbying to come to the west coast, but hopefully there is more room to grow, to build the infrastructure, so that we can make those types of trips.
Since 2022, Women’s Gameday has gone to seven sec locations, four ACC games and two Big ten -competitions. It still needs to go to a feue that is a school in the Big East, Big Ten or Big 12, a lot of lessons to measure the conference.
“We have UConn here at the end of four and we don’t go to Stor. That is in (ESPNs) backyard,” says Ogwumike, a former double PAC-12 player of the year in Stanford. “And I know we have the best execs that try to make the best decisions for us, but hopefully we will find ways to tell Tose stories about athletes. Do you tell you that you will see in her last year?
ESPN has a chance this fall to satisfy the calls of the Stars of Gameday. While the Constaste will not miss Watkins, it might miss the entire next season while she is organizing Rom to Tragic Knee Injessus USC in what will become a mustchup matchup on November 15. Neuzel called “The Real sc” Battle, the game is played on an aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.
Is ESPN willing to step on the toes of College Football and a West Coast game broadcast by a rival so-called it can have a witness on perhaps the most brought non-conference ladies basketball collision of the year?
When the game was announced, Duncan says that the crew e -mailed their bosses.
“It was like,” So, we’re going here? ” That is an earlier season, “says Duncan”, but that was an absolute dream. “