Welcome to Karen Hunter's awesome. I'm Karen Hunter and it is March Madness. We are in the midst of the NCAA final four this weekend. We're going to find out who will go to the Final Four next weekend.

And I am really excited because women's basketball is on the rise. And several years ago,

I want to say like 30 years ago while I was at the New York Daily News, I started a women's

basketball magazine. The very first cover featured Cheryl Swops,

and we had Rebecca Lobo on a cover and Nikki McCrae, Rest in Power. The magazine was called NextZone.

And I was committed to reimagining the images of women in sport, you know, much like women's tennis that had its own thing

and it gave rise to Venus and Serena and others now Cocoa Golf and Naomi Osaka.

For particularly black women, there were very few role models, very few people that they could look to

because basketball wasn't televised.

Today, young girls have NIL deals.

You have millionaires playing in college basketball.

Shout out to the South Carolina team and Flauget and all of the folk that are out there making money.

Audi Crooks and everyone.

And it is exciting.

The WMBA just agreed to a deal that will make, I think the salary increases

like 400% is the largest salary jump in the history of sport. And what they're saying is not just

that you matter, but that we're paying attention. We're paying attention to women's basketball

in a way that we have not paid attention to it before. And I'm excited. I'm excited for all of the little girls who are going to be

tuning in, who can aspire to make a living and make a life in a sport that has really grown,

the unrivaled league, you know, there's all of this. And women can now stay home. They don't have to go to

Russia and Israel and other places to play a sport that they love. They can stay home and still make

money and have dignity. And I got to interview one of the first pioneers of women's basketball.

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