Emmert’s net compensation for the year was about $2.9M, a more than $450,000 increase over '16GETTY IMAGES
NCAA President Mark Emmert was credited with nearly $3.9M in "total compensation" during the '17 calendar year, according to Steve Berkowitz of USA TODAY. The amount includes a "deferred payment" of just over $1.4M, but $1M of that "already had been reported on prior years' returns." That means Emmert’s "net compensation for the year" was about $2.9M. The net figure represents a more than $450,000 increase over what was reported for Emmert for the '16 calendar year, when he received a $615,000 increase in his base pay. His base amount went up by less than $40,000 in '17. Three other NCAA execs were credited with more than $1M in total compensation for the '17 calendar year, and eight more were credited with more than $500,000. Among the group credited with more than $500,000 were two former employees who "did not work for the association" in '17 (USA TODAY, 5/24).
TIMING IS EVERYTHING: YAHOO SPORTS' Forde & Thamel wrote the timing of Emmert's $1.4M deferred payment is "coincidental, but also far from ideal." During those 12 months when Emmert was "making a financial killing," the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York and the FBI were "blowing the lid off of college basketball." The '17-18 season was "played under a cloud of suspicion and investigation that still hasn’t lifted." Emmert did do a "very NCAA thing in response to the scandal: He formed a committee," which was led by Condoleezza Rice. A year later, however, there is "no evidence that the Rice Commission profoundly altered college basketball in any way." Its findings "generated more cynicism than energy" (SPORTS.YAHOO.com, 5/23).
