DATE: Sunday, March 30, 1997                TAG: 9703300183

SECTION: SPORTS                  PAGE: C1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY HARRY MINIUM, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: CINCINNATI                        LENGTH:  120 lines

ROAD TO FINAL FOUR BUMPY IN EARLY '80S

To see how far women's basketball has come since the 1980s, compare the first NCAA women's Final Four to the championship event this weekend at Riverfront Coliseum.

The inaugural NCAA championship was held in 1982 at Scope, and because Old Dominion had been upended by Kansas State in the East Regional semifinals, the host Lady Monarchs had a devil of a time selling tickets.

ODU athletic director Jim Jarrett pounded the pavement in downtown Norfolk, urging the region's corporate leaders to purchase large blocks of tickets for ``the good of the community.'' Thousands of tickets were bought and distributed free of charge to high school students, who were transported to Scope in school buses.

``We were on the street, practically giving tickets away,'' said Mimi Griffin, who then worked for Converse and is now a sportscaster for ESPN.

The result was a sellout crowd of 9,531 for the title game between Louisiana Tech and Cheyney State. The gate was hailed as something of a miracle by most of the 75 or so reporters in attendance.

``1982 was like a social event,'' Griffin said. ``It was a small group. Everyone there knew each other.''

A nice way of saying it was anything but big time.

Fast-forward 15 years to the current Final Four, which sold out in five hours when the 16,716 tickets were put on sale last summer. No longer are Griffin and others handing out tickets. Instead, scalpers are hauling in upwards of $500 for a pair of tickets to tonight's championship game.

More than 550 credentialed journalists are in town, as are more than 2,000 coaches holding their annual meeting in Cincinnati. Nearly 7,000 fans turned out Thursday afternooon just to watch the Final Four teams practice.

CBS televised that 1982 championship game only because it was required to as part of its men's basketball contract. The ratings were minuscule.

But three years ago, ESPN outbid CBS for the rights to all of the women's NCAA tournament, paying $19 million for seven seasons. That may be chicken scratch compared to the $1 billion CBS paid for the men's tournament, but no longer does women's basketball lose money on television.

Last year's championship game drew the second-highest rating for any of the more than 900 men's and women's college games broadcast by ESPN in the last four years - a 3.7 rating, which translates to 2.52 million households.

``The game has come so far,'' said Nancy Lieberman-Cline, the ESPN sportscaster and former ODU All-American. ``The Final Four has come into its own as a big-time event.''

Women's basketball as a whole has made strides. The caliber of play has improved, as has funding, attendance and media coverage. In 1982 the average attendance for a Division I game was 410 per game. Total attendance was just over 1 million.

In 1995-96, average attendance increased to 1,223, and total attendance was nearly 3.8 million.

There have been significant milestones along the way. ESPN televised the Final Four semifinals from Norfolk for the first time in 1983. The Final Four sold out for the first time in 1987 in Austin, Texas. In late 1987, Tennessee drew a women's basketball record crowd of 24,563. In 1994, the NCAA tournament field expanded to 64.

``The game has grown in every way,'' Jarrett said.

But a look at the financial ledger of tonight's championship game participants shows the game still has far to go.

According to a survey by USA Today, the ODU and Tennessee women's basketball programs combined to lose more than $1.1 million in 1995-96, the first season for which Division I teams were required by the NCAA to make public their finances.

Tennessee, with four national championships and an average gate of nearly 10,000 for home games, lost $619,373, USA Today reported. ODU, with three national titles but a more modest budget, lost $535,476.

ODU subsidizes its program with money paid by students for activities such as the student government, the campus newspaper and athletics. In return, students can attend women's games free of charge, though few do.

Only the men's basketball team, which traditionally draws about twice the women's basketball average this season of 3,047, is a money-maker of the 16 varsity programs at ODU.

The Lady Monarchs are among the nation's top 30 draws in women's basketball, yet revenues lag largely because tickets are cheap. ODU charges $5 and $3 for tickets to women's games. A men's basketball ticket costs $12 or $10.

It's even cheaper to watch women's basketball at some other big-time programs. Duke, a consistent winner in the ACC, didn't begin charging for admission to women's games until last season.

There is also a widening disparity between the haves and have-nots in women's basketball. UConn and Tennessee outdraw the men's programs on their campuses, but at schools such as Xavier, which is hosting the Final Four, only a few hundred turn out for women's games, and attendance has been sliding in recent years.

``This is the Final Four, so of course there are tons of fans,'' said Mike Hermann, associate athletic director at Xavier. ``But we don't have ESPN on our sidelines at every game.''

Even NCAA tournament attendance has officials worried. Attendance ``was atrocious,'' said Jarrett, for most of the regional finals this year. ODU defeated Florida for the Mideast title before 2,742 at Purdue. In Iowa City, a women's basketball hotbed, Tennessee and UConn, perhaps the game's two biggest names, drew 4,257 for the Midwest championship game.

The fact that three of the tournament hosts - Purdue, Iowa State and Montana - lost in the regional quarterfinals hurt attendance. But Jarrett said the women's game must mature to the point where, as in the men's game, a regional championship draws regardless of whether the home team lost.

``We've sold the Final Four,'' he said. ``The next challenge is to do the same thing with the regionals.''

To do so, the game must be sold to an audience that so far has been reluctant to embrace women's basketball - males and college students, who stay away from women's basketball in droves on most campuses.

Lieberman-Cline counsels patience. Converting the masses will take years, but the conversion process is well under way, she said.

``It's going to take time. We've come so far in the last 10 years. If people continue to do things the right way, if they continue to market the game, in 10 years maybe there will be more teams in the black than in the red.''

Griffin, for one, is savoring what the women's game has now. As she watched ODU coach Wendy Larry being mobbed by dozens of reporters at Riverfront Coliseum Saturday, Griffin smiled.

``Back in 1982, we said this was what we wanted,'' she said. ``We wanted this kind of coverage, this kind of interest, for the Final Four.

``Now we've got it.'' ILLUSTRATION: Graphic

The Virginian-Pilot

WOMEN'S BASKETBALL

[For complete graphic, please see microfilm]

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