Summarize and humanize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in EnglishUCLA vs UConn, South Carolina vs Texas sets stage for Final FourUSA Today’s Meghan Hall previews the women’s Final Four teams that will be heading down to Tampa to compete for national championship.Sports SeriouslyTAMPA, Fla. – Geno Auriemma didn’t mince words when talking about the impact that schools being able to directly pay their athletes could have on women’s basketball.”It will ruin parity,” the UConn coach said Thursday during a media day ahead of the women’s NCAA Tournament Final Four. “That’s number one. I’m for revenue sharing. (But) there will be less parity in the game of basketball.”In October, a federal judge gave preliminary approval to a proposed settlement of antitrust cases against the NCAA that would allow college athletics departments to begin paying athletes for the use of their name, image and likeness (NIL). A final-approval hearing is scheduled for Monday. Under the agreement, athletes would continue to be able to receive NIL compensation from non-school entities. But the deal also would lead to evaluations of those outside arrangements that could result in them being less valuable to athletes than they are at present. Money paid by the schools to any individual athlete would not be subject to such scrutiny.There would be a cap on the total amount a school could pay its athletes each year – $20 million to $23 million to start, and then increasing annually – but how schools choose to allocate that money among their athletes would be up to them. Auriemma pointed to what he sees as a decrease of parity in the men’s game each year. As money drives the sport, there will be fewer programs that have the money to compete with the top schools. While many of the same teams play for the title in the women’s tournament, there are a lot more teams vying for Final Four spots — and Auriemma believes that will all go away with schools making NIL payments to athletes — or, as it is commonly being called — revenue-sharing. “When you do those kind of things and it’s money-driven, it’s going to be who is going to become the Dodgers and Yankees?” Auriemma said. “How many of those are you going to have and how many other programs in women’s basketball are going to be Milwaukee and Kansas City? Because that’s where we’re headed.” The final-approval hearing scheduled for next week creates an awkward limbo for coaches recruiting players in the transfer portal right now. South Carolina coach Dawn Staley said the pool of money they have raised from donors in the NIL space via collectives is likely more than what they will pay in the revenue-sharing model. Athletics officials at several schools have said they plan to allocate most their NIL money to football and men’s basketball players. “If you look at the rev share and how much women’s basketball programs will get, it seems like more than what you normally have to work with,” Staley said. “But when you compare it to some of the numbers that are being thrown at some of these young people, I don’t know how they can operate in that space with rev share.” Auriemma doesn’t believe the $20 million to $23 million cap will be adhered to.“You think anybody in their right mind is going to stick to (the cap)?” Auriemma said. “That might be what’s on the books, but that ain’t going to be the final number.” There are also more creative opportunities for teams to increase their funds in the NIL space. South Carolina, Duke, Texas and UCLA are all participating in the inaugural Players Era Women’s Championship 2025. The tournament will give teams a chance to earn at least $1 million in NIL opportunities. “It’s a lot that you have to work through and you do need somebody on staff, which is more money to keep all the chaos organized, especially during a time like this,” Staley said. “ It’s a lot. But if you’re not someone that can easily pivot, this thing will swallow you up. We’re fortunate that we’ve been working the chaos for a long time, that it just feels normal.” USA TODAY Sports reporter Steve Berkowitz contributed to this report.
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