Women's teams in the NCAA Tournament getting individual revenue share for 1st time. What's a 'unit'?

Women’s basketball teams in the NCAA Tournament for the first time will be getting an individual share of the March Madness revenue pie.

Women’s teams will earn financial incentives, known as units, for playing in the tournament. It is one of the final equity pieces that was missing between the men’s and women’s tournament. In the past, schools received no financial reward other than the NCAA covering the cost of a team’s expenses to play in the tournament.

The formula can be complicated, but the bottom line is conferences will receive $113,000 for each game a women’s team plays in the NCAA Tournament. The conferences will divvy that money up to their schools however they see fit.

Last season's women's tournament was the most successful ever, which included a record audience of 18.7 million for the title game won by South Carolina over Iowa and Caitlin Clark. The Gamecocks and Hawkeyes didn't receive a dime from the NCAA for their efforts last year.

Now that will change.

“Units” are what the NCAA calls its tally of wins, automatic qualifiers and at-large bids that determine how much conferences are paid.

A unit is money paid to conferences when one of its teams appears in the NCAA Tournament.

The women’s March Madness financial incentive program is now similar to the men’s basketball unit program. South Carolina coach Dawn Staley was one of the most outspoken advocates for the women's teams to get the same financial rewards men's teams receive.

Each of 32 conferences that receive an automatic bid to the tournament now receives a unit, and additional units are rewarded for teams that receive at-large bids.

A team will earn an additional unit for every game it plays in the tournament this year up until the title game.

Currently the money generated by units is only disbursed to the school. However, that could change as NIL and revenue sharing with student-athletes continues to evolve.

Units are paid to conferences by the NCAA from revenue generated mostly through TV deals.

The NCAA signed a new media rights deal with ESPN which values the women’s basketball tournament at $65 million annually. There will be $15 million awarded to teams in the first year of the fund, which is 26% of the women’s basketball media revenue deal. That number will grow to $25 million, which is 41% of the revenue, by 2028. The 26% is on par with what men’s basketball teams received the first year the performance units program was established.

After reaching the fully funded amount of $25 million, the funds will grow at the same rate as all other Division I funds, which is approximately 2.9% each year.

The women have a higher percentage of the media revenue deal to bolster the value of each performance unit.

Conferences receive money from the units and divide it among its member schools.

The units earned by participating teams is paid to the schools’ respective conference offices starting in 2026 on a rolling three-year basis. A unit this year is worth just over $113,000 and a total of $251,000 for the three years. The Big Ten has a record 12 teams in the tournament and if somehow none of them wins a game, they've already earned $3 million for the conference.

If an individual team makes the Final Four this season, it could earn over $1.25 million for its conference. It's up to the conference to decide how to divvy up the money earned to each of its member schools.

In comparison, a men’s unit for the 2024 tournament was worth $2 million total for a six-year rolling basis. The men have an $8.8 billion deal over eight years.

The units come from two funds. The Equal Conference Fund is a baseline through which the NCAA awards one unit to each of the 32 Division I conferences that have an automatic bid. Through the performance fund, the NCAA also awards a single unit to every team that makes the tournament via an at-large berth.

There are 68 women's teams that make the tournament; each accounts for one unit just for getting in.

Units are also awarded from the performance fund for teams that advance. One unit is awarded for every win until teams reach the Final Four. Wins in the semifinals or final don’t count for units.

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Columbia players huddle together at practice in Chapel Hill, N.C., Wednesday, March 19, 2025, before their First Four basketball game in the NCAA Tournament against Washington on March 20. (AP Photo/Nell Redmond)

Columbia guard Marija Avlijas runs with teammates during practice in Chapel Hill, N.C., Wednesday, March 19, 2025, before their First Four basketball game in the NCAA Tournament against Washington on March 20. (AP Photo/Nell Redmond)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon’s intelligence and law enforcement arms are investigating what it says are leaks of national security information. Defense Department personnel could face polygraphs in the latest such inquiry by the Trump administration.

A memo late Friday from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s chief of staff referred to “recent unauthorized disclosures” of such information, but provided no details about alleged leaks. Earlier in the day, President Donald Trump rejected reports that adviser Elon Musk would be briefed on how the United States would fight a hypothetical war with China.

“If this effort results in information identifying a party responsible for an unauthorized disclosure," then such information “will be referred to the appropriate criminal entity for criminal prosecution,” according to the memo.

At the Homeland Security Department, Secretary Kristi Noem pledged this month to step up lie detector tests on employees in an effort to identify those who may be leaking information about operations to the media.

The Justice Department on Friday announced an investigation into “the selective leak of inaccurate, but nevertheless classified, information" from intelligence agencies about Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang whose members in the United States are being targeted for removal by the Republican administration.

Leaks occur in every administration — and government officials can be the source — as a trial balloon to test how a potential policy decision will be received.

While polygraph exams are typically not admissible in court proceedings, they are frequently used by federal law enforcement agencies and for national security clearances. In 1998, the Supreme Court ruled they were also inadmissible in military justice proceedings.

They are inadmissible because they are unreliable and often result in false positives, said George Maschke, a former Army interrogator and reserve intelligence officer who went on to found AntiPolygraph.org. Mashke failed a polygraph himself when applying to the FBI.

But they have been intermittently used since the 1990s to intimidate and scare sources from talking to reporters, Maschke said. A 1999 Pentagon report said it was expanding the program to use polygraphs on defense personnel “if classified information they had access to has been leaked."

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth does a television interview outside the White House, Friday, March 21, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)