Women’s Basketball Final Four Moving to ESPN : Television: Officials laud deal that will add day of rest between semifinals and final and provide coverage of earlier rounds.

NCAA women’s basketball officials reacted positively to the announcement Wednesday that their Final Four will move beginning in 1996 from CBS to ESPN, even though the money they are receiving from the cable network is minuscule compared to the television money for the men’s tournament.

ESPN will pay $19 million for the women’s tournament during a seven-year stretch through 2002. CBS announced Tuesday a $1.725-billion deal to televise the men’s tournament during the same period.

Said Cedric Dempsey, executive director of the NCAA: “We had two priorities for the women’s basketball championship: a day of rest between the semifinals and final, and live coverage of earlier rounds.”

In the new agreement, ESPN or ESPN2 will televise 19 NCAA championship events from the 1995-96 academic year through 2001-2002, and part of that agreement calls for ESPN to carry the NCAA women’s basketball tournament exclusively.

ESPN will televise eight games from the round of 32 and all games after that. The semifinals will be played Friday night and the final Sunday night.

The women’s Final Four went to consecutive days--the semifinals on Saturday, the final on Sunday--at the behest of CBS, which began carrying both in 1991. Before that, beginning in 1982, CBS carried only the final, and there was a day of rest after the semifinals.

Leon Barmore, the women’s coach at Louisiana Tech, called the ESPN deal a major step up for women’s basketball.

“This is going to really elevate the women’s game in this country,” he said. “We are now with the right network. I just don’t think CBS cared about us much.”

Barmore had been an outspoken critic of the back-to-back schedule.

“I’ve got a good mind to put these young women on a plane tonight and take them home,” he said after his team defeated Alabama, 69-66, in the semifinals last April.

“If television made the men play back-to-back days for their championship. . . . Well, it just wouldn’t be allowed to happen.”

Judy Holland, UCLA senior associate athletic director and a former chairman of the NCAA’s women’s basketball committee, pointed out another plus with the ESPN deal.

“We never knew how much we were actually getting from CBS because we were lumped in with a lot of other sports,” she said. “This way, we are dealing directly with ESPN.”

Len DiLuca, vice president of programming for CBS Sports, said the network did not want to lose the women’s basketball package.

“We were delighted to be partners with the women for so many years, and would have loved to have continued that partnership,” he said. “But they, choosing to take a risk, went elsewhere so they get the day of rest and also get more exposure for the earlier rounds.”

Staff writer Earl Gustkey contributed to this story.