To mark the tip-off of the 2024 Women’s NCAA basketball tournament, State Farm is launching a new commercial starring—you guessed it—Caitlin Clark. 

It’s the epitome of a big-time sports ad: inspirational voice-over (done by Lisa Leslie, former Naismith College Player of the Year and Hall of Famer), hit-single soundtrack courtesy of Sia’s “Unstoppable,” and blanket media buy throughout March Madness. If you’re a basketball fan, it’s not a matter of if you’ll see this spot, but when. 

As a major sports advertiser, especially across college and pro hoops, State Farm is investing a significant amount of ad dollars and giving major air time to Clark, who the brand signed to an NIL deal back in October. Since then, it has celebrated the college star across social media, including in a January ad alongside Jimmy Butler and retired legend Reggie Miller, and marked her becoming the all-time scoring leader in college basketball by sending Jake from State Farm to the game wearing a bespoke vest designed by Kristin Juszczyk. They even arranged for Clark to meet her WNBA hero, Maya Moore. 

“We thought it was important to launch a new commercial around her to celebrate what she’s accomplished, what she means to not just women’s sports, but I think sports in general,” says State Farm CMO Kristyn Cook. “We like to move at the pace of culture, and this is one of those big moments.”

However, the marketability of women’s basketball goes well beyond Clark. Brand investment in women’s sports is up across the board. Witness the continued rise of the NWSL and WNBA, and the gangbusters launch of the PWHL. Since NIL became a reality, female college athletes have been among the most popular and highest earners. In fact, Southern Methodist University (SMU) volleyball star Alex Glover’s 41 NIL deals ranked as the most of any NCAA athlete over the 2023-24 season, and LSU’s Angel Reese (basketball) and Livvy Dunne (gymnastics) ranked in the top 10 of overall NIL earnings.

It’s no coincidence that this is happening at a time when these athletes have access to social media tools to promote and tell their own stories to fans, no longer fully reliant on a sports media machine that for so long ignored them. 

Draymond Green and Carmelo Anthony are among a handful of current and former NBA stars in AT&T’s March Madness campaign, which also features University of Southern California standout, JuJu Watkins. According to AT&T, the company is consistently increasing its support in women’s sports, and this year’s NCAA Tournament is no different with a 117% increase in media investment year-over-year.

Green says one of the biggest obstacles and opportunities in women’s sports is getting the athletes’ stories told. “A huge factor in the continued growth of the NBA has been, we know that LeBron James grew up in Akron, Ohio, in Spring Hill Apartments with a single mother, and all these things he had to overcome. We know these stories, and it makes that connection more personal,” says Green. “So now, we’re starting to learn more about the stories of the female basketball players. I know where Angel Reese is from. I know she was at Maryland, and then went to LSU. We know Caitlin Clark’s story. We know JuJu is from Watts; we know she decided to stay home and go to USC. We’re starting to see these stories more in the marketing, and we’re in this phase of women’s basketball that I think is the best it’s ever been.” 

Anthony agrees and says women’s sports in general are on fire right now. “With women’s basketball, specifically, there is so much excitement; and to me, it’s one of the purest forms of the game. And because of that, it gives fans another perspective on the game,” says Anthony. “It’s definitely having a moment; it just needed more support, and still needs more support, but it also needed companies and sponsors to understand it.”

As the value of the various players has grown among fans, the brands, marketers, and broadcasters have followed. Gatorade is one of the earlier brands to see the value of telling women’s sports stories. The brand’s second-ever athlete signing after Michael Jordan was U.S. soccer star Mia Hamm, and Gatorade was a founding sponsor of the WNBA. It’s also got a VIP seat on the women’s college bandwagon, sponsoring UConn star Paige Bueckers and launching a limited edition Clark-designed product drop earlier this week, which sold out in a single day. The brand has increased its media spend in women’s sports by nearly 900% in the past five years. 

ESPN reported that viewership for the 2023-24 women’s college regular season was up 32% year over year, averaging 476,000 viewers across games on ESPN and ABC, with 13 games of more than 500,000—a new record for a single season. And with USC’s Watkins just in her freshman year, among other incredibly talented players, there is good reason to see this as a longer-term trajectory.

Gatorade head of sports marketing Jeff Kearney told me recently that with stars like Bueckers, Clark, Watkins, and Reese, gradually moving from college to the WNBA, women’s basketball is set to take off in a big way. “There’s a wave coming, and is this going to carry into the W?” said Kearney. “I don’t think it slows it down at all. It could really take it to an even higher level.”

State Farm’s Cook played college basketball at Syracuse and sees the combination of phenomenal on-court product with brands and broadcasters stepping up as a flywheel that is just beginning to elevate women’s basketball in a new way. “We need to create more flywheels as Clark goes into the WNBA, in particular, and how we can help along with other brands to elevate that league because there’s incredible athletes there with stories that need to be told as well.”

Green agrees wholeheartedly, pointing to the amazing stories combined with the way a new generation of college players are moving the game forward. “The talent has been there, but we’re now starting to learn more about these players’ stories, which makes you more connected to them as people, and more interested in their talent,” says Green. “Don’t look now, but I think women’s basketball is finally about to take off like we all thought it could and would. This is just the tip of the iceberg.”