ESPN announced yesterday that they’ll be starting a women’s basketball oriented version of their popular College Gameday program starting in January.  The show will follow it’s usual format of covering games around the NCAA while broadcasting live before, during, and after the game from the day’s featured location.  The first game will be shown at traditional women’s basketball powerhouse UConn when they play Notre Dame on January 16th.

It’s about time this happened.  Women’s basketball has had some exciting players with star potential in recent years, but lack of exposure has stopped them from reaching their true potential as inspirations to young (especially African-American and Hispanic) girls, who are often in desperate need of role models for healthy lifestyles and exercise as well as for the value and excitement of higher education.

College Gameday is so widely-watched by the people who flip on ESPN by default that this might make a big difference in terms of the number of fans who either casually watch or more closely follow women’s basketball.

Here’s hoping.