The NCAA will distribute money to member institutions more rapidly in the future and is reconsidering the level of its cash reserves, NCAA BOG Chair and Kansas State President Kirk Schultz said yesterday at the '15 IMG Intercollegiate Athletics Forum. “You’ll continue to see us hold less dollars at the NCAA, distribute more out to the schools, and do the same thing a lot of our conferences do,” Schultz told interviewer Brad Wolverton, a writer at the Chronicle of Higher Education. “They don’t have large depositories of dollars. When those dollars come in, they distribute them rapidly. I think you’re going to see the NCAA take on more of that flavor in the next several years.” The NCAA reported net assets of $760M in its '13 tax year, and Schultz said his desire to distribute more cash must be balanced with the need to keep robust reserves in case of emergency. “Let’s say there’s a 9/11 type event that cancels the NCAA tournament,” he said. “Schools are still depending on those dollars. So you can say, ‘Hey, there’s no reason to hold all those dollars,’ but we’ve got to make sure if there’s a traumatic event we’re supporting those schools.” Such decisions are subject to membership votes, but he said, “Simply saying this is the way we’ve done it for 20 years is no longer going to be a sufficient way of doing things.”
BEHIND CLOSED DOORS: Schultz, who is finishing the first year of a two-year term leading the NCAA’s top governing board, denied that the NCAA is considering spending down its reserves to mitigate the possibility of legal losses. He also suggested he would like to see a limited number of journalists invited into NCAA meetings on compliance matters to combat the image of inconsistent rules enforcement or seemingly strange decisions. “We’ve got to find ways to open that up,” he said. As lawsuits, financial concerns and major governance questions swirl around college sports, Schultz said his top concern is maintaining a wide range of college sport programs at universities.
