For the third straight week, there’s a new most-watched women’s basketball game of the 2025-26 season. South Carolina’s Valentine’s Day win over LSU now holds the top spot.

The Gamecocks’ victory averaged 1.7 million viewers on ABC, ESPN announced. It marked a big TV ratings win for the first regular-season women’s college basketball game in the network’s Saturday primetime window.

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The matchup peaked at 2.2 million viewers and became ESPN’s fourth-most watched women’s college basketball regular-season game on record. South Carolina has now played in the two most-watched games of the year so far, according to Nielsen Big Data + Panel data compiled by On3.

ESPN’s special edition of College GameDay on Saturday, which aired in primetime ahead of LSU vs. South Carolina, also scored a record audience. An average of 1.2 million viewers watched the program to become the most-watched episode of women’s GameDay ever, ESPN said.

Saturday’s game topped the previous mark set Feb. 8 when South Carolina’s victory over Tennessee averaged 1.46 million viewers on ABC. It also continues a red-hot stretch for college women’s basketball TV ratings with four games averaging more than 1 million viewers in the last three weeks.

Feb. 1 marked a huge day for women’s hoops as two games hit 1 million average viewers. UConn’s win over Tennessee led the way with 1.21 million viewers to become FOX’s most-watched game of the year, while Texas’ victory against Oklahoma averaged 1.10 million viewers on ABC that same day.

All told, five women’s basketball games have hit the 1 million mark. The CyHawk rivalry game between Iowa and Iowa State was the first to do so at 1.03 million on Dec. 10 in the Jimmy V Classic. That remains the most-watched game to air on ESPN this year.

How it happened: South Carolina beats LSU

LSU took a lead against South Carolina after the first quarter on Saturday, but the Gamecocks rallied to go up 41-40 at halftime. They then stayed out in front in the final two quarters en route to the 79-72 victory at the PMAC to improve to 25-2 on the year.

Tessa Johnson led South Carolina with 21 points while Raven Johnson added 19. Madina Okot also had a big night with 12 points and a game-high 17 rebounds. On the LSU side, Flau’jae Johnson dropped 21 points to go with eight rebounds while Mikaylah Williams had 11 points.

Entering a loaded Valentine’s Day slate of games, ESPN said its women’s college basketball TV ratings were surging. Viewership was up 33% year-over-year across the family of networks, which now has more games airing on ABC.

Breanna Stewart is signing with European powerhouse Fenerbahçe Opet in Turkey for the 2026 EuroLeague Final Six, the team announced Monday. The single-elimination tournament to decide the EuroLeague champion will be held in Spain from April 15-19.

Stewart is currently playing with Mist BC in her second season in Unrivaled, which she co-founded. The regular season concludes on Feb. 28, and the playoffs run through March 4. Stewart is scheduled to join Team USA for a training camp in Miami from March 7-8 and then head to Turkey. She is not on the American roster for the FIBA World Cup qualifying tournament from March 11-16.

Stewart previously played for Fenerbahçe during the 2022-23 season. She led the team to the EuroLeague title and was named MVP of the Final Four (the format of the postseason tournament has since been modified). This season’s Fenerbahçe roster was stacked even before Stewart’s arrival, featuring WNBA All-Stars Kayla McBride, Gabby Williams and Emma Meesseman, as well as Iliana Rupert and Julie Allemand.

Dünya Yıldızı Breanna Stewart yeniden Fenerbahçe Opet’te! 💛💙✍️@breannastewart

Kazandığı tarihi başarılar, imza attığı rekorlar ve geçmişten bugüne dek kadrosunda yer alan dünya yıldızlarıyla Türk Sporuna büyük bir marka değeri kazandıran Türk Basketbolunun Lokomotifi… pic.twitter.com/01q2vm2yKt

— Fenerbahçe Opet (@fbkadinbasket) February 16, 2026

Stewart hasn’t played in Europe since that season due to a combination of factors, including injuries and the launch of Unrivaled, but she has always spoken positively about her experiences playing overseas. She previously played in Russia for multiple seasons before joining Fenerbahçe. Stewart is not the only WNBA player to double-dip during the WNBA offseason. McBride also played a short stint for Fenerbahçe in 2025 after the first Unrivaled season. Tiffany Hayes went to Turkey to play for Fenerbahçe rival ÇBK Mersin after the 2025 WNBA season and then came back to the U.S. for the 2026 Unrivaled season.

The schedule of the EuroLeage Final Six also aligns well with Stewart’s WNBA obligations in 2026. Per the prioritization clause of the current collective bargaining agreement, players are required to report by the start of the season or May 1, whichever is later. The last possible game for Fenerbahçe would be on April 19, allowing Stewart sufficient time to return stateside to the New York Liberty, or whichever team she happens to sign with during the WNBA offseason.

Prioritization is expected to remain in the new collective bargaining agreement, but any new terms likely would not be phased in until 2027.

Stewart, who is a vice president of the WNBA players union, has been recently optimistic about the progress of the WNBA CBA negotiations. On her podcast “Game Recognize Game,” she said, “Our recent CBA proposal that we got, there’s movement, there’s traction, we’re finally headed in a direction, so I’m excited.”

This article originally appeared in The Athletic.

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For women’s basketball, it was the first-ever Saturday night game on prime-time ABC. For South Carolina, it was the program’s 18th consecutive win over LSU. For Dawn Staley, it was the 500th win of her coaching career.

But from a raucous Pete Maravich Assembly Center — where the crowd was celebrating not only women’s hoops but also Valentine’s Day and Mardi Gras — the game was a marker that South Carolina, though not the national championship favorite this year, has players who will find their moments on the biggest stage. In a 79-72 road win over No. 6 LSU, No. 3 South Carolina made more plays down the stretch and delivered a statement win in a tough environment.

South Carolina junior Tessa Johnson, who knocked down four first-half triples — twice as many as LSU did all game — had the hot hand and scored 16 of the Gamecocks’ 41 first-half points. LSU stretched its defense in the second half to lock her down (she still finished with 21 points on 8-of-13 shooting), but that just gave center Madina Okot more room to operate in the paint. The senior finished with a game-high 17 rebounds and 12 points, including a crucial 2-footer and two free throws in the final minute to help secure the win.

Through it all, senior point guard Raven Johnson controlled the show. She finished with a career-high 19 points, seven rebounds, six assists and four steals.

Most impressive was that these players were able to step up while South Carolina’s most reliable player and leading scorer this season, Joyce Edwards, was largely held in check.

Even though LSU won the battle on the glass 46-37 and tallied 18 offensive boards, the Tigers were never able to string together enough offense to overcome the small cushion South Carolina built. During the second half, the Tigers went cold from the floor, shooting just 29 percent and hitting one of their final 11 field goal attempts.

In the final minute, even after hitting a clutch long 2-pointer to pull LSU within 1, Flau’jae Johnson — a lone bright spot for the Tigers for most of the game — missed two consecutive free throws. LSU later opted to appeal a late-game call that was clearly out of bounds on the Tigers, forfeiting its final timeout.

“It’s an accumulation of things we could’ve done better,” Johnson said. “We’re going to go back to the drawing board.”

LSU will get a chance to bounce back quickly, as the Tigers play at No. 14 Ole Miss this week and then face just one ranked opponent after, No. 22 Tennessee. South Carolina will close out its season with three of its four final games coming against ranked opponents: No. 23 Alabama, No. 14 Ole Miss and No. 18 Kentucky.

Coming out of this game, officiating will likely be a talking point, as there were inconsistencies throughout. Only eight fouls were called in the first half compared to 26 in the second half, and ESPN’s officiating expert, on multiple occasions during the broadcast, said they disagreed with calls on the floor.

Before the game, the NCAA women’s basketball committee released its top 16 seeding list for the NCAA Tournament. South Carolina held on to the No. 3 spot, and this win likely won’t be enough to move the Gamecocks ahead of UCLA, which sits at No. 2. But it will be interesting to see what happens with LSU. The Tigers were No. 8 in the first reveal, sitting at the final No. 2 spot, with No. 9 Ohio State (which has three more games this season against teams in the committee’s top 16) nipping at their heels.

This article originally appeared in The Athletic.

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Although the WNBA collective bargaining negotiations remain stalled, NBA commissioner Adam Silver says he is “not ready to set a drop-dead date.” 

At his NBA All-Star availability Saturday, Silver said he has not been at the negotiating table, but remains involved behind the scenes. Even if he was unwilling to identify a date that would save the WNBA from having to miss games, Silver did indicate that more urgency was necessary in the bargaining process.  

The league has to conduct an expansion draft for two new franchises, the Portland Fire and Toronto Tempo. The WNBA draft is scheduled for April 13, and training camp will likely begin on April 19, giving the WNBA about a two-month window to conduct all of its offseason business. 

“What I’d love to accomplish is sort of putting pressure on everybody, and say, okay, you know, I’ve been through so many cycles of collective bargaining, and often things tend to get done at the 11th hour,” Silver said. “We’re getting awfully close to the 11th hour now when it comes to bargaining.

“We need to now move towards the next-level sense of urgency, and not lose momentum in terms of the amazing amount of progress we’ve seen in women’s basketball.”

WNBA players and the league had their most recent in-person meeting on Feb. 2, and the league submitted its latest CBA proposal that Friday. Revenue sharing remained the key battleground, as the union proposed a split of gross revenue and the league proposed taking expenses out before sharing the revenue with the players.

The newest proposal from the league doesn’t fundamentally change the revenue-sharing structure, though the WNBA is now offering a salary cap of $5.65 million, up from $5.55 million. The league is also engaging on minimum facility standards, though the owners would prefer to phase those in after 2026. 

The biggest concession from the league has been regarding housing. A prior league proposal removed team housing based on the premise that salaries were increasing enough for players to handle that expense, per sources familiar with the negotiations. However, the WNBA is reintroducing housing for players on a minimum salary or with zero years of service through the 2028 season. The league is also offering studio apartments for developmental players. There would be a maximum of two per team. 

WNBPA vice president Breanna Stewart expressed some optimism on her podcast “Game Recognize Game” about the latest updates in the CBA negotiations.

“There’s movement, there’s traction, we’re finally headed in a direction, so I’m excited,” Stewart said. “I’m excited to hopefully negotiate back, really kind of do the negotiations because unfortunately it’s been like 17-18 months that we haven’t negotiated, we’ve been just fighting.”

Silver echoed that positive sentiment Saturday. “I’m encouraged there has been more back-and-forth over the past few weeks,” he said. “There’s been more direct engagement from players and team owners.”

WNBA players traditionally participate in NBA All-Star festivities, including playing in the celebrity game. The Shooting Stars competition, which returned to All-Star Saturday for the first time since 2015, was originally conceived to include one WNBA player in each team of three. However, even as the WNBA lingers in the “status quo” period where conditions of the 2020 CBA take effect, none of its players were on the 2026 NBA All-Star schedule. 

This article originally appeared in The Athletic.

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Unrivaled is once again taking its show on the road.

After the success of its first tour stop in Philadelphia, which set a professional women’s basketball attendance record, the three-on-three league is heading to Barclays Center in Brooklyn for the semifinal round of its postseason on Monday, March 2.

The Unrivaled postseason includes the top six of the league’s eight teams. The first round featuring the third through sixth seeds will take place at the league’s home base in Medley, Fla. on Feb. 28. The final four teams will then head to Brooklyn for the second round before the league returns to Sephora Arena in Florida for the championship game on March 4.

Per league sources, the opportunity to play at Barclays Center came together quickly after the Philadelphia games on Jan. 30. Unrivaled generated $2 million in revenue that night; more than $1 million came from ticket revenue and $400,000 from in-arena merchandise sales. Ticketmaster data showed that the largest portion of fans came from Philadelphia, but the second-most represented market was New York City. That, combined with the city’s support of the WNBA — the New York Liberty averaged more than 16,300 fans per home game in 2025 — made Brooklyn a natural landing spot for Unrivaled’s next road date.

The league plans to have multiple regular-season road stops in 2027 but has yet to announce the locations.

“We’re excited to bring Unrivaled to NYC for the first time and are thankful for the opportunity to showcase the game on one of our biggest stages yet,” Unrivaled president Alex Bazzell said in a statement to The Athletic.

Unrivaled has six nights remaining in its second regular season. The Laces and Phantom have already qualified for the playoffs. Reigning champions Rose BC sit in fifth place in the standings but just welcomed back 2025 defensive player of the year Angel Reese for the remainder of the season.

This article originally appeared in The Athletic.

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