PHOENIX — As downtown Phoenix begins the arduous task of preparing to host the Women’s Final Four basketball tournament in 2026, there are lessons to be learned and societal inequities to address.

For example, journey back to the 2021 Women’s Final Four. Stanford would face South Carolina while Arizona went up against the University of Connecticut. The teams arrived excited to compete and win. But the brightest lights on the sport’s biggest event put the spotlight on it for the wrong reasons.

The time period was heightened by the COVID-19 pandemic, with social distancing leading to a lack of social interaction and lack of opportunities. The NCAA had a massive task on its shoulders as it moved all of the women’s games to the San Antonio, Texas, area while the men stayed in Indianapolis.

“Moving all operations to San Antonio and trying to have a Final Four while the men were at the NCAA home base in Indianapolis was a struggle,” said Doug Tammaro, a senior associate athletic director for Arizona State University. “That was a difficult time for many.”

The effort was made but the mistakes were highlighted.

Compared to the men’s massive weight room in Indianapolis, the women’s weight room in the Alamodome looked paltry. As social justice movements in 2020 raged around the world, the 2021 Women’s Final Four was filled with errors.

“I just attributed it to COVID, the germs and not not wanting a lot of people to gather,” said Adia Barnes, who was then the women’s basketball coach at the University of Arizona. “I never knew it was unequal until it was posted, and we saw the comparison.”

After the events of the 2021 Women’s Final Four, the road for more female leadership in Division I programs is still challenging. The NCAA demographics database shows the weight that is on women shoulders, according to a 2023-24 summary.

In 2024, 84% of athletic directors in Division I schools were men while 16% were women, including GCU’s Jamie Boggs. Those figures reflect little growth from 2021, when the number of athletic directors in Division I schools was 86% men and 14% women.

In 2024, 73% of Division I head coaches were men while 27% were women. In men’s sports, 94% of head coaches were men while 6% were women. There are more male head coaches in women’s sports than female, with men accounting for 57% of head coaching spots in women’s sports while the women have 43% of head coaching positions.

“I think that it is certainly not because there is a lack of capable women out there,” said Candice Storey Lee, athletic director of Vanderbilt University. “We know that there are capable accomplished men and women who deserve opportunities.”

Gender stereotypes and biases lead to a lack of opportunities for women who are capable of leading as athletic director or head coach.

Leadership skills can be overlooked in the hiring process when it comes to ranking female applicants for any job. Some men prefer men in the hiring process and some who have a lower power rate female applicants worse and suggest a lower income, according to a study published in the National Library of Medicine.

“Most people have not seen a female athletic director or have not personally experienced a female athletic director so there’s clearly some work to do,” Lee said. “If you talk to a young man about being a head coach and being an athletic director, then let’s make sure we’re talking to young women about the same thing.”

Despite the lack of women in leadership positions in the NCAA, women’s basketball continues to thrive.

The 2024 Women’s Final Four between South Carolina and Iowa was watched by 40.5 million people, making it at the time the most-watched NCAA Women’s Final Four in history, with an additional tens of thousands of people participating in fan and community events throughout the tournament in Cleveland, Ohio.

The semifinals games and the championship game were played at sold out crowds at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse. The 2025 championship game between Connecticut and South Carolina averaged a significantly less 8.5 million viewers, but it was still the third most-watched women’s NCAA championship game on record.

In 2021, the brightest lights highlighted the women’s tournament for the wrong reasons. Even with little changes in women’s leadership following the 2021 Women’s Final Four, the lights still shined bright on the women as recent as 2024 – except instead of controversy it’s success.

“Four years later the NCAA and women’s basketball have reached incredible numbers in viewership and we are excited to host the Final Four in downtown Phoenix next year,” Tammaro said.