UCLA is the No. 1 overall seed in the 2025 women’s March Madness tournament, but it is far from the biggest spender. The Bruins spent $7 million on women’s basketball in the most recent season for which data is available, while the South Carolina Gamecocks’ expenses totaled $10.8 million.
South Carolina was the only Division I school in the country to spend more on its women’s hoops squad than its men’s in 2022-23, although No. 3 seed LSU joined that club in 2023-24. LSU is one of two other tournament teams with a 2022-23 women’s basketball budget exceeding $10 million, along with No. 1 seed Texas.
(To include private institutions, these figures have been pulled from EADA data, which schools submit annually to the U.S. Department of Education. The 2022-23 season is the most recent data available).
Here’s how all 68 tournament teams stack up:
South Carolina’s first round opponent, Tennessee Tech, spends just $1.4 million on its women’s basketball program, making that the most lopsided financial matchup in the round of 64. If Southern, however, wins its First Four game against UC San Diego, the ratio of its $936,000 budget to that of UCLA will be the largest disparity between two opponents in the bracket.
In women’s March Madness, even more so than the men’s event, money talks. The richest programs generally get the top seeds, and schools’ seed numbers increase almost linearly as their budgets get smaller. Seven of the top 10 highest-spending teams in the nation snagged a top four seed in 2025.
The financial dominance of the top seeds in the women’s tournament is mirrored by on-court dominance in the event itself. Top three seeds are 359-1 historically in the round of 64 and have won all 42 titles. No. 1 seeds specifically have won 11 of the past 12 national championships.
The first round of the women’s tournament tips off Friday following Wednesday’s and Thursday’s First Four play-in games.