Tampa, Florida – Elle Duncan remembers being impressed Virginia Tech. In February 2024, the girls’ basketball version of ESPN’s College Gameday hosted by Duncan went to Blacksburg at the Cassel Coliseum in Virginia, where it aired for the first time from the ACC venue. Thousands of Hokies fans appeared early and reached the door to win a spot among the crowd behind the Gameday set. They’re loud, rough and proud, providing Gameday-worthy environment ahead of the nationally ranked Hokies matchup North Carolina tar heels.
And this past season, Duncan, Andraya Carter and Channy Ogumike went to the Reynolds Coliseum on the campus of North Carolina State University in Raleigh. Duncan had to recalibrate the rankings for her top locations where she did the show.
“I think we chose very wisely where we were going. NC states have been a really great response,” Duncan told SB Nation in the Final 4. “Virginia Tech was amazing to me. It was nuts. Then we went to North Carolina. They were lined up even earlier.”
Fans were posted outside the historic arena the night before the match. North Carolina coach Wes Moore greeted those passionate supporters with a free donut on Sunday morning hours before Wolfpack reached number one. Notre Dame Double overtime in front of a sold-out crowd. Before that epic game, those same fans brought in incredible energy as a background to the university Gameday.
“That was my favorite. I’d say it. Sorry,” Ogwumike said of the NC with a laugh. “But it was amazing to go there.”
College Gameday is one of ESPN’s iconic brands. The soccer version of the show dates back to 1987 and began running that set in 1993, transforming into a game day that fans are used to. The coach is set to retire this season as Gameday turns the page as a star with new personalities like Pat McAfee and Nick Saban.
In 2005, ESPN took the blueprint for a marquee football pre-game show and applied it to men’s college basketball. Between the first season of the show and 2021, Gameday took the set only twice to a women’s basketball contest: Notre Dame uconn Vanderbilt in the 2010 clash and the 2011 Tennessee matchup.
Finally, in 2022, the show returned to women’s college basketball, coinciding with the era when sports fandom began to thrive. There was one show in 2022, three in 2023, five in 2024, four in this past season. Last year there was supposed to be a fifth show, but the game was cancelled due to snow.
As the show returned and grew and created its own loyal, passionate audience, its staples – Duncan, Carter, and Ogumike, became stars in themselves, and in many ways evolved into the face of ESPN’s women’s basketball.
“It was amazing,” Carter said. “We’re so glad they’ve brought us back. We’ve been keeping our energy and carrying that momentum. We’re really good friends, so we really lose contact and have to understand this natural chemistry again.
When they break X and O, or discuss the character of the coach with the player on air, Duncan, Carter and Oguumke may oppose some. But when it comes to the future of College Gedaemei’s women’s college basketball adaptation, they all agree on one fundamental thing.
They want more.
“We want more, right? “I think there’s definitely a desire. Sponsorship is there. So it’s really about logistics. But it’s always been our hope.
Carter adds:
And Ogwumike: “Women’s basketball has a sense of camaraderie that elevates each other that we find very special and very unique. So the goal is to do more gamemade.”
Photo: Cindy Ord/Getty Images
This season, 16 men’s college gay dae will be broadcast, of which 10 are from the site location. The boys’ shows began on January 11th at ESPN’s studio in Bristol, Connecticut, but the first of the four girls’ shows didn’t air until February 16th.
The female directing hosts of college Gameday women know they have little control over their schedules, but to help the sport and show grow, they hope it starts much earlier in the calendar.
“I’m wrong to ask,” Carter says with a laugh. “If you ask me, we’ll be somewhere in the first week. That’s not really how it works. Even on men’s game days, they tend to wait until the football season is over.
A former Tennessee standout, Carter has worked in a variety of roles at ESPN over the past few years. In addition to her duties as a women’s college basketball studio analyst WNBAshe is a side job reporter at SEC football games and a regular at Gameday, a boys’ college.
In addition to seeing women’s game days happen more frequently and start early in the season, she also hopes that viewers will resemble the versions they see in men’s basketball and soccer, but not pre-game shows as it’s a standalone show broadcast live from the biggest game of the week.
“Most of the time, our shows are like pre-game shows, they come in the game. Then there’s all the fans coming to the show, there’s more fan interactions, there’s a traditional Gameday show,” Carter told SB Nation. “The show is a show instead of a pre-match show – and the fans are coming, moving on to it, finding more windows, and having more shows. Obviously, as guys who were being gamed in college, there are more Saturdays than we do women.”
Duncan adds: “Is this a pre-match show for games that appear on ESPN, or a show that serves as a standalone show like the guys?
For example, all of the women’s Gameday shows this season led to games broadcast by one of the ESPN family networks, whether it’s ESPN, ESPN2, ABC, SEC networks, and ACC networks. This is a true 12 at a 13th of the Women’s College Gaming Medi Show since 2022, with only exceptions being created for ranked matchups between them Ohio Kate Linklark’s Iowa aired on Fox on March 3, 2024.
Meanwhile, soccer’s Gameday was released from five game locations that were not aired on the ESPN platform last season. Football shows have always pursued big stories, regardless of conferences, wherever the game is aired.
This causes frustration by Ogwumike. Ogwumike points out that Gameday hasn’t played a show from Los Angeles this season. USC’s Juju Watkins was the consensus national player of the year, but Laurenbetts led UCLA to his first final four appearances.
“We were begging us to go out to Los Angeles,” Carter says. “USC or UCLA is clearly something we absolutely want to do.”
However, both schools play in the Big Ten, where their game is broadcast by NBC and Fox. Another argument is that Big Ten schools don’t usually play on Sundays like the SEC or ACC teams. However, USC and UCLA have played seven Big Ten home games combined on Sunday in this past season. There was an opportunity for Gameday to go to Angel City.
“Well, I’m on my agenda, my little horse now,” Ogumike begins. “I really hope this is the year I had Los Angeles basketball (on Gameday). I know it’s hard to grasp the logistics of going from coast to coast, but for me it’s not possible to negotiate when Juju Watkins, Lauren Betts… I’m taking shots.
Since 2022, Women’s Gameday has made its way to a 7-second location, four ACC games and two Big Ten games. I haven’t traveled yet to the venue, home to Big East, Big Ten, or Big 12 schools.
“We have UConn in the Final Four, but we couldn’t go to Storms. It’s in the backyard (of ESPN),” says Ogwumike, a former two-time Pac-12 player of the year at Stanford. “And we know we have the best executives who are trying to make the best decisions, but hopefully find a way to tell the story of an athlete. Imagine seeing Page in her last year.
ESPN has the opportunity to fulfill the charm of Gameday’s star this fall. The contest lacks Watkins, who could miss everything for next season when he recovers from a tragic knee injury, but USC is hosting South Carolina, a must-see matchup on November 15th.
Is ESPN willing to step on the toes of college football? And are you happy to broadcast West Coast matches by your rivals?
When the game was announced, Duncan says the crew emailed their boss.
“So, will we go here?” That’s an earlier season matchup,” Duncan says. “But that will be an absolute dream.”
