Not anytime soon if the Atlantic Coast Conference has anything to do with it. There’s a story today titled “ACC Reluctant to Acknowledge Lesbian Fans” in the Greensboro News and Record:

On Friday, 13,599 fans watched UNC’s quarterfinal victory over Clemson. The crowd was a mix you’d never see at the more-exclusive ACC men’s tournament: children from area schools, dads with their teenaged daughters, entire families, retired couples.

And lesbians. Alone, in couples and in large groups of friends.

“It’s nice to just walk around the concession stand and see thousands of other women just like you,” said Lisa McGehee, 46, of Greensboro.

As successful as the women’s tournament has been in terms of attendance, Griffin and others believe it would do even better if officials would target lesbians in their marketing.

“It seems to me it makes no sense economically not to market to every part of your fan base,” Griffin said. “The object is to put fans into seats, isn’t it?”

But apparently instead of making money off of basketball-loving lesbians, most colleges ignore their lesbian fan-base:

Eight years after the WNBA began acknowledging its growing lesbian fan base through advertising and marketing, women’s college basketball remains largely indifferent to that demographic despite growing evidence that lesbians are a significant portion of the sport’s fan base.

None of the major athletics conferences — including the ACC — markets its women’s basketball tournament directly toward lesbians, and only a handful of individual colleges have recognized their lesbian fans publicly.

ACC officials last week said it markets its women’s tournament to all fans of the sport, but would not discuss the tournament’s support among lesbians.

That’s not surprising, according to Pat Griffin, a former Maryland basketball player and author of the book, ‘Strong Women, Deep Closets: Lesbians and Homophobia.’

“It’s still something schools don’t want to face,” said Griffin, professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts. “I think there’s going to have to be a conference out there that does it first, and when they succeed others will follow.”

I wonder how it makes the gay women on these college basketball teams (and trust me, every team has gay players) feel to know that the ACC doesn’t want them acknowledged?