South Carolina women's basketball is arguably the top program in the country.
Dawn Staley, the former WNBA star, has led the Gamecocks to three national championships since 2017. The program has won roughly 95 percent of its games. South Carolina won the national title in 2024, lost in the national title game last year and is a frontrunner to win it all this year.
But while the Gamecocks are dominating on the floor, they are reportedly losing a decent amount of money off of it.
South Carolina's last season was very much in the red.
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South Carolina reportedly operated at a greater than $5 million loss last season.
The Sports Business Journal shared the details.
"The women’s basketball program last season was $6.24M 'in the red, losing over $600,000 more than it did in FY24.' Five SEC women’s basketball programs 'operated at a larger deficit' than South Carolina in FY25: LSU (-$8M), Texas (-$7.5M), Ole Miss (-$7.4M), Kentucky (-$6.6M) and Arkansas (-$6.4M)," they reported.
"In FY25, South Carolina 'spent over' $13M on its women’s basketball team, including over $7M in salaries for coach Dawn Staley, her assistants and support staff. The 'only other SEC schools that spent more than' $10M were LSU, which spent 12.1M, and Texas with 10.9M."
However, the team has not been 'fully monetized'
Ben Chase opened up.
"People will dunk on this, but the team hasn’t been fully monetized. Two jersey patches on a team winning 95% of their games, on big media, on social media, for the right sponsors is worth a significant marketing spend. Not to mention floor logos, and other new revenue streams that should make this number hit the black. Companies looking to get into one of the best opportunities for marketing exposure in the next calendar year, let me know. Dollars follow eyes," he shared.
South Carolina is set to take on No. 3 seed TCU in the Elite Eight on Monday night.
