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thru 2025. News was buried in the small print at the bottom of an NCAA release regarding NIL at 9 pm last nigh...
The Athletic had an article about it this morning:
Of course the news of NCAA president Mark Emmert’s contract extension would drop as the fourth topic and the eighth paragraph within a press release that landed at 9:04 p.m. ET. When you’re really excited about news, that’s exactly how you announce it.
On Tuesday night, the embattled NCAA president received an extension that now takes his tenure through New Year’s Eve 2025. It’s a two-year extension from the end of his previously negotiated contract, which itself felt generous at the time it was finalized.
As the news came in — buried in a Tuesday night press release from the NCAA’s Board of Governors — so did the text messages. Commissioners and athletic directors were livid, especially knowing that this extension came a month after one of the most embarrassing moments of Emmert’s tenure: the 2021 women’s NCAA Tournament, in which the basketball had to compete for headlines with outrage over a meager exercise space (instead of the full-fledged weight room made available to the men’s teams), subpar food and inadequate policies for nursing mothers. The law firm that the NCAA has hired to do a gender equity analysis of its championships isn’t even done with that review, yet the president who oversees the entire organization just received not only a vote of confidence from his bosses but multiple millions of them.
Fundamentally, it doesn’t make sense. Why would a group mostly made up of university presidents extend someone it doesn’t have to, when that so-called leader has lost the faith of most of his constituency?
“Such a massive disconnect,” one Power 5 athletic director texted The Athletic on Tuesday night. “Inexplicable.”
Another high-ranking administrator wondered aloud whether the Board of Governors was just worried that no one else would be interested in the job of NCAA president, in the midst of massive name, image and likeness (NIL) reform, a significant transfer rule change that allows increased freedom of movement for athletes and the unknowns that come along with a Supreme Court case.
A more cynical read on the situation would also be a lot simpler: LSU is looking for a new chancellor, and Emmert had been linked to the open job in the past week. He had worked there before in the same role; multiple plugged-in administrators thought he was planning his exit strategy. His right-hand man, NCAA COO and chief legal officer Donald Remy, was recently nominated to be the next deputy secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs. The thinking, at least late last week, was that these two departures would seem choreographed while also avoiding the potential controversy of a forced ouster. Earlier this month, more than two dozen administrators told The Athletic they believed Emmert’s tenure should end. Or perhaps, the new thinking goes, Remy’s departure was used as leverage with so many ongoing legal battles, on the assumption that continuity in executive leadership was particularly needed at this time.
No matter the reason, Emmert’s tenure will continue into the middle of the next decade because a group of university presidents said it will. A group of administrators too busy to get into the weeds of college athletics is choosing to put its faith in a leader who has failed to lead on every prominent issue facing college athletics during his tenure, from athletes’ rights to compensation to health and safety protocols during a pandemic. Emmert has spent the better part of the last few years lobbying Congress to handle rules regarding athletes’ names, images and likenesses for him and his membership. As the saying goes, real leadership is known for passing the buck.
This is why the NCAA was so proud of itself that it buried news of Emmert’s extension in its own press release. It was labeled “other business,” which is technically correct and also extremely misleading. Yes, it’s just one agenda item to check off for a group of decision-makers that are too busy with their own campuses to dive into Emmert’s myriad failures. But Emmert’s role is intricately tied to the entity of college sports right now. This is the person who bears the brunt of the criticism for a model many consider outdated. This is someone who could be proactive on any given issue but opts to be reactive and treat every topic, from legalized gambling to cost-of-attendance stipends, as an “existential threat” to amateurism at its core.
The Athletic had an article about it this morning:
Of course the news of NCAA president Mark Emmert’s contract extension would drop as the fourth topic and the eighth paragraph within a press release that landed at 9:04 p.m. ET. When you’re really excited about news, that’s exactly how you announce it.
On Tuesday night, the embattled NCAA president received an extension that now takes his tenure through New Year’s Eve 2025. It’s a two-year extension from the end of his previously negotiated contract, which itself felt generous at the time it was finalized.
As the news came in — buried in a Tuesday night press release from the NCAA’s Board of Governors — so did the text messages. Commissioners and athletic directors were livid, especially knowing that this extension came a month after one of the most embarrassing moments of Emmert’s tenure: the 2021 women’s NCAA Tournament, in which the basketball had to compete for headlines with outrage over a meager exercise space (instead of the full-fledged weight room made available to the men’s teams), subpar food and inadequate policies for nursing mothers. The law firm that the NCAA has hired to do a gender equity analysis of its championships isn’t even done with that review, yet the president who oversees the entire organization just received not only a vote of confidence from his bosses but multiple millions of them.
Fundamentally, it doesn’t make sense. Why would a group mostly made up of university presidents extend someone it doesn’t have to, when that so-called leader has lost the faith of most of his constituency?
“Such a massive disconnect,” one Power 5 athletic director texted The Athletic on Tuesday night. “Inexplicable.”
Another high-ranking administrator wondered aloud whether the Board of Governors was just worried that no one else would be interested in the job of NCAA president, in the midst of massive name, image and likeness (NIL) reform, a significant transfer rule change that allows increased freedom of movement for athletes and the unknowns that come along with a Supreme Court case.
A more cynical read on the situation would also be a lot simpler: LSU is looking for a new chancellor, and Emmert had been linked to the open job in the past week. He had worked there before in the same role; multiple plugged-in administrators thought he was planning his exit strategy. His right-hand man, NCAA COO and chief legal officer Donald Remy, was recently nominated to be the next deputy secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs. The thinking, at least late last week, was that these two departures would seem choreographed while also avoiding the potential controversy of a forced ouster. Earlier this month, more than two dozen administrators told The Athletic they believed Emmert’s tenure should end. Or perhaps, the new thinking goes, Remy’s departure was used as leverage with so many ongoing legal battles, on the assumption that continuity in executive leadership was particularly needed at this time.
No matter the reason, Emmert’s tenure will continue into the middle of the next decade because a group of university presidents said it will. A group of administrators too busy to get into the weeds of college athletics is choosing to put its faith in a leader who has failed to lead on every prominent issue facing college athletics during his tenure, from athletes’ rights to compensation to health and safety protocols during a pandemic. Emmert has spent the better part of the last few years lobbying Congress to handle rules regarding athletes’ names, images and likenesses for him and his membership. As the saying goes, real leadership is known for passing the buck.
This is why the NCAA was so proud of itself that it buried news of Emmert’s extension in its own press release. It was labeled “other business,” which is technically correct and also extremely misleading. Yes, it’s just one agenda item to check off for a group of decision-makers that are too busy with their own campuses to dive into Emmert’s myriad failures. But Emmert’s role is intricately tied to the entity of college sports right now. This is the person who bears the brunt of the criticism for a model many consider outdated. This is someone who could be proactive on any given issue but opts to be reactive and treat every topic, from legalized gambling to cost-of-attendance stipends, as an “existential threat” to amateurism at its core.
