Emmert helped form the Rice Commission last year amid the FBI investigation into college basketballMARC BRYAN-BROWN
The NCAA has extended President Mark Emmert’s contract five more years to Oct. 31, 2023, with an option to take it out to Oct. 31, 2024. If Emmert fulfills the length of the new contract, he will have been in the role 14 years, longer than any NCAA chief since Walter Byers (‘51-88). Emmert, who has been with the NCAA since ‘10, made just under $2.1M in base salary and $290,185 in other compensation, according to the NCAA’s most recent federal tax return from ‘16. The contract extension further solidifies the BOG’s confidence in Emmert, who has provided direction in the past year on matters such as the FBI investigation into college basketball scandal by forming the Rice Commission. He also has been an influential voice on the threat of legal wagering to college athletics. The greatest challenge facing Emmert and the membership is the ongoing Alston v. NCAA lawsuit that threatens the NCAA’s amateur model. Emmert said at last week’s Learfield Intercollegiate Athletics Forum that there is no appetite among the NCAA’s senior leadership to explore a pay-for-play model. “If you’re one of those people who said the root problem is that college basketball players aren’t being paid, you were guaranteed to be unhappy (by the Rice Commission report) because it was clear that nobody in a college leadership position was interested in going in that direction.”
