{"id":711514,"date":"2026-04-07T17:56:16","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T17:56:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/711514\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T17:56:16","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T17:56:16","slug":"5-things-that-stood-out-at-the-ncaa-final-four-in-phoenix","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/711514\/","title":{"rendered":"5 things that stood out at the NCAA Final Four in Phoenix"},"content":{"rendered":"

PHOENIX — I\u2019m now 2-for-2 on completely losing my voice at women\u2019s basketball events (\ud83d\udc40WNBA All-Star<\/a>), but I\u2019m coming back with a notebook full of ideas and reporting for future stories. While I get cranking, here\u2019s my impressions of what stood out at the Women\u2019s Final Four:<\/p>\n

1. Phoenix is a women\u2019s basketball town. <\/b>The city hosted the Women\u2019s Final Four for the first time ever, and the NCAA would do well to consider going back. Already high on women\u2019s basketball with the hometown Mercury, Phoenix didn\u2019t simply roll out a red carpet.<\/p>\n

It did one better, with a multistory bracket on the side of the Barrister Building across from Mortgage Matchup Center. The towering grid of teams displaying the path to the Final Four was part of a centralized, walkable plan for the event to take over the downtown. Organizers put the Tourney Town and Four It All Fan sites at the convention center, a block away from the arena.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we tried to create is when folks stepped off the airplane at Sky Harbor Airport, that they knew they were at the Women\u2019s Final Four,\u201d said Jay Parry, CEO of the Phoenix Final Four Local Organizing Committee<\/a>. \u201cThen that just continued into downtown Phoenix, and the idea was to have this very compact, walkable campus. And I got great feedback on everything being so close.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re just really proud about how it all came together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Parry asked me about my experience, and I co-sign on the walkability. Everything was close, so I\u2019ll chalk my 30,000-step day on Saturday to doing a lot.<\/p>\n

2. Give the fans what they want — community and merch. <\/b>I made a couple visits out to Togethxr House, the largest single activation the company has done<\/a>. The vibes were great, and it was a good space to engage with the brands activating there (including Aveeno, Aflac, Paula\u2019s Choice, Chase and Stanley 1913).<\/p>\n

The secret sauce it taps into in women\u2019s sports though is a need for community, but one that isn\u2019t tribal in the divisive way we see in so many other sports. The fans that came through definitely supported their teams, but even after UConn and Texas lost in the semifinals, the community remains because it\u2019s built on supporting women and the idea that they rise together.<\/p>\n

(By comparison, as a lifelong Bills fan, I can assure you I am definitely not cheering for other NFL teams to do well if mine is not.)<\/p>\n

Which leads to where Togethxr excelled, working with Dick\u2019s Sporting Goods to create an extensive merch shop. It had team-specific gear, the company\u2019s iconic \u201cEveryone Watches Women\u2019s Sports\u201d apparel and its new collab with Stanley 1913.<\/p>\n

And Round 21 launched merch with the Valkyries\u2019 Tip Hayes, with \u201cNever Been Done\u201d tees among the items in the shop.<\/p>\n

\u201cFans of women\u2019s sports, first and foremost, want to support women. Then it might be their favorite player or team, but they want to support women,\u201d said Round 21 CEO Jasmine Maietta. \u201cThis new generation understands that sports doesn\u2019t live at one address like the stadium. We want to empower sports to be in our scroll, on what we wear, where we spend time with friends.\u201d<\/p>\n

3. Podcasts still rule.<\/b> As I wrote about late last year, the business of women\u2019s sports podcasts is booming<\/a>. It sure was at the Final Four. In the two days off competition, I saw live tapings of four shows — \u201cBetween the Lines,\u201d Lisa Leslie\u2019s show with Just Women\u2019s Sports; \u201cGood Game with Sarah Spain\u201d at Tourney Town; \u201cUnsupervised with Syd and TP\u201d at Togethxr House; and \u201cA Touch More\u201d at the Orpheum Theater. <\/p>\n

Highly recommend any of those if you have the chance to go at the WNBA All-Star Game, NWSL championship or other major events.<\/p>\n

4. Women\u2019s basketball owns April.<\/b> ESPN play-by-play announcer Ryan Ruocco compared it to a bomb cyclone. Reporter Holly Rowe called it \u201ca perfect storm of chaos.\u201d<\/p>\n

No matter the adjectives or comparison, April is going to be a busy month in women\u2019s basketball. <\/p>\n

UCLA winning the Final Four came with the WNBA expansion draft taking place before the tournament semifinals. Up next for the league is free agency — though exact timing of that is TBD since the CBA hasn\u2019t been finalized — followed by the college draft on April 13.<\/p>\n

Amid all that movement, the transfer portal opened Monday and will surely have big ripples (\ud83d\udc40 Iowa State<\/a>), and WNBA training camp opens April 19.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe should be capitalizing on the intersection of everything that\u2019s happening now because this is something that most sports don\u2019t have that small window from going from college to pro,\u201d said ESPN analyst Chiney Ogwumike. \u201cThat to me is a beautiful time to show the transition, what makes us unique.\u201d<\/p>\n

5. A collab we loved. <\/b>The championship featured the beloved performer Red Panda<\/a>, with rugby star Ilona Maher (who was part of ESPN\u2019s Megacast) throwing her bowls to Red Panda atop her giant unicycle. So stressful, but so entertaining. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHOENIX — I\u2019m now 2-for-2 on completely losing my voice at women\u2019s basketball events (\ud83d\udc40WNBA All-Star), but I\u2019m…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":711515,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5131],"tags":[5229,5643,1587,1317,1589,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,1707],"class_list":{"0":"post-711514","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-phoenix","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-arizona","10":"tag-az","11":"tag-ncaa","12":"tag-phoenix","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-united-states-of-america","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","17":"tag-us","18":"tag-usa","19":"tag-womens-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116364718225312613","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/711514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=711514"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/711514\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/711515"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=711514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=711514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=711514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}