South Carolina Gamecocks women’s basketball coach Dawn Staley may face a significant cut in her team’s financial budget come the next season, as her school may shift its focus elsewhere.
On Tuesday, March 31, the OutKick Hot Mic show uploaded a video to its X/Twitter page where one of its hosts, college sports analyst Chad Withrow, talked about the upcoming financial landscape of the University of South Carolina.
Withrow believes that there is a chance that Staley and her program will have less money to work with since the athletic department of their school may provide more allocation to both its football team and its men’s basketball squad. This is because Withrow brought up the fact that there are more viewers and spectators to college football and men’s basketball than women’s hoops, which is why it can be a possibility.
“ I think I know the answer because I know why the money is there for football and men’s basketball, it’s because we watch a lot more, because we pay a lot more, because there’s a lot more interest in those two sports than there is in women’s basketball. And this is not a diss at women’s basketball; these are the facts. Numbers don’t lie. Numbers cannot be sexist, so all these athletic departments are gonna have to make a decision here,” Withrow explained. (0:26)
“Are you gonna continue to spend four, five, six million on a roster in women’s basketball and be great and support a great coach, which I understand the thinking behind this. Or are you going to take that money and say, ‘Let’s go get an elite football roster. Let’s go get three more really good basketball players that will ensure we’re going to the tournament year after year.’ These are decisions everyone’s gonna have to make,” he continued.
For now, Staley’s focus remains on this year’s national tournament, wherein she has brought her current slew of Gamecocks to another NCAA Final Four appearance. The South Carolina-based program is set to face coach Geno Auriemma’s UConn Huskies for a shot at the 2026 national championship game, which is a direct rematch of the 2025 NCAA title matchup where the Gamecocks lost to the Huskies.
The South Carolina Gamecocks Football Team Failed To Make The College Football Playoff in 2025
Perhaps the reasoning as to why Chad Withrow believes that there is a possibility that the University of South Carolina athletic department may shift its focus to its football team for now is because it failed yet again to make the national postseason this year.
The Shane Beamer-coached squad finished their recently-concluded campaign with an overall record of 4-8 (1-7 SEC), and had no kind of postseason competition. That was a major step down from the previous season, where the Gamecocks went 9-4.
