Women's Health April 6, 2026 0 Comments

This Women’s Final Four Shattered Records and Ignited a Movement Way Beyond the Court—Here’s Why It Matters More Than a Championship

It’s 7 p.m. on a Thursday in Phoenix’s Melrose District, and the place is buzzing at Title 9 Sports Grill—the city’s first and only bar devoted entirely to women’s sports. You’d think April evenings like this call for something breezy, like a grapefruit-infused Billie Jean Spritz, right? Nope. It’s “busy season” around here, and no, it’s not just because the weather’s perfect. Between the tail end of the Unrivaled 3-on-3 basketball, the kickoff of the WNBA season, and March Madness electrifying the city just miles away, women’s basketball is no longer a sideline story—it’s center court. Watching the energy and devotion of this community, I can’t help but wonder: Has women’s basketball finally moved from being an exciting underdog to the gold standard of sports fandom? It sure feels that way. LEARN MORE

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It was about 7 p.m. on Thursday night, and Title 9 Sports Grill in Phoenix’s Melrose District was packed with a mix of regulars and new faces in town to take in the conclusion of the women’s NCAA basketball tournament that weekend.

Though Title 9, which opened a year ago, is well known as the city’s first and only sports bar dedicated to women’s sports—and you could say I’m something of a women’s sports super-fan myself—my mind still went elsewhere when a bartender told me it was their “busy season.”

It’s early April! The weather is gorgeous! It’s the perfect time to grab a Billie Jean Spritz! (That’s grapefruit tequila, Aperol, orange bitters, and prosecco, by the way.)

But no. The Unrivaled 3-on-3 basketball season just ended, the WNBA season is about to begin, and sandwiched in between is March Madness, which would crown a champion later that weekend about 4 miles away at Mortgage Matchup Center. In this sacred section of the city, where a life-size image of Phoenix Mercury legend Diana Taurasi leaping for a layup graces the wall opposite the bar, women’s basketball means business.

“The city has changed and embraced not only women’s basketball, but women’s sports in general,” Taurasi told me two days later in downtown Phoenix, where she was supporting Lilly’s mobile mammogram screenings for women over 35. She was drafted to the Mercury in 2004, and simply never left—her kids go to school here, her entire life is here, and now she’s made it her mission to help give back to the place that’s given her so much.

Amanda Lucci

The Diana Taurasi wall at Title 9 Sports Grill

“This city is the gold standard when it comes to fandom,” she said, “and I think the Final Four this weekend is definitely a product of that.”

As someone who has covered women’s sports from all corners of the globe—Final Fours to All-Star Games, World Cups and the Olympics—I sometimes sound like a broken record saying, “This one feels different.” But it’s kind of like your favorite record, the one where every pop and crackle tells a story, the one you can’t stop playing because even though it’s different than it was, it feels like a warm hug. You’ll never let it go, because it’s the real deal.

I said it after the 2023 Final Four in Dallas, when the Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese showdown became water cooler conversation as First Lady Jill Biden looked on from Billie Jean King’s suite. I said it again last year in Tampa, when Paige Bueckers and Azzi Fudd carried UConn to a record 12th national championship, setting up a storybook rookie year for Paige in the WNBA and launching another new generation of players into superstardom.

But what made this Final Four feel different was how ordinary it all suddenly felt—in the best way. Merch lines snaked through every building I visited without anyone remarking on them. Every stray conversation I heard in restaurants or out in the street carried the assumption that of course this was where everyone should be this weekend. No one was explaining why it mattered, they just knew it did.

Like on Saturday night in the lobby of my hotel, when I met a woman from Iowa named Steph who was at that game in Dallas three years ago to cheer on her local team. She and her family fell so in love with the experience that they decided they’d make traveling to the women’s Final Four a yearly tradition.

Covering plenty of miles in Phoenix in my Brooks sneakers, every fan I spoke to along the way said attending the Final Four is not necessarily about having a personal connection to a team—it’s about connecting to the community.

The Bruin Bond

This year’s tournament certainly delivered on exciting upsets and busted brackets, like when South Carolina put on a defensive master class to shut down title favorites UConn on Friday night. But when UCLA hoisted the national championship trophy Sunday afternoon, they made it clear that the win was all about heart, manifestation, and the power of friendship.

At the postgame press conference, UCLA head coach Cori Close explained what that looked like for this UCLA team, a group of mostly veterans—all of their points in the championship game were scored by seniors—who have spent years together forging strong bonds and making sacrifices to win the school’s first-ever national title. For the last 30 days, the Bruins began film sessions by writing down five to seven “I will” statements and choosing some to share with each other. They decided they would become national champions, and they did.

“I just think about how many of those ‘I wills’ they actually lived out,” Close said. “That’s just so rewarding to see something that you really planned for, you really sacrificed for.”

UCLA senior guard Gabriela Jaquez, who was the game’s leading scorer, said their biggest “why” was each other. “The joy we had and the love we have for each other has really motivated us this whole season, because we just want to do it for each other,” she said. “That just made it so special.”

“The joy we had and the love we have for each other has really motivated us this whole season.”

Jaquez and her teammates went viral multiple times this season for simply having a good time, whether they were joining the UCLA dance team at halftime of the men’s basketball game or recording funny TikTok dances.

“We did everything to get there, basketball-wise, and we also just enjoyed each other,” said senior center Lauren Betts, voted the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player. A top WNBA draft prospect who has been open about her past struggles with mental health, she said the support of Close and her teammates made her see herself in a new light. “We’re such a close group of girls, and I’m gonna miss them so much.”

Very little of the press conference was spent on box scores and stat lines, but rather on the relationships that powered them through. That’s not to say it hadn’t been on display from prior championship-winning teams, but it feels particularly poignant that in a moment when the sport is exploding outward—with bigger audiences, bigger stakes, and a brighter spotlight—the thing its top team chose to center was something that felt so human.

It’s not just the highlights or the headlines anymore, but the feeling of being part of something exciting. In Phoenix, it looked like downtown bars packed with lifelong fans alongside first-timers already planning their 2027 trip to Columbus, Ohio. It looked like a team writing down “I will” and seeing it through.

Maybe that’s what’s different now. Not that women’s basketball has arrived—it’s always been here—but that it’s settled in. The kind of thing you plan your spring around without thinking twice. The kind of thing that, once you’re in it, you don’t really want to leave.

Amanda Lucci is the director of special projects at Women’s Health, where she works on multi-platform brand initiatives and social media strategy. She also leads the sports and athletes vertical, traveling to cover the Paris Olympics, Women’s World Cup, WNBA Finals, and NCAA Final Four for WH. She has nearly 15 years of experience writing, editing, and managing social media for national and international publications and is also a NASM-certified personal trainer. A proud native of Pittsburgh, PA, she is a graduate of Ohio University’s E.W. Scripps School of Journalism. Follow her on Instagram @alucci.