NCAA President Mark Emmert (left) and Eric Kaler, chairman of the NCAA’s board of directors, echoed each other during the organization’s state of the union at the Final Four.Getty Images
When the NCAA tasked a commission to reform college basketball in October, Mark Emmert said he recognized the severity of the issue and publicly promised an open-minded, progressive look at how to make the collegiate model better.
But not much about the NCAA president’s state of the union at last week’s Final Four leaned open-minded or progressive. Emmert and Eric Kaler, the University of Minnesota president who chairs the NCAA’s board of directors, surprisingly parroted the century-old notion that athletes are simply students who happen to play a sport, regardless of how many zeroes are on the rights fee check. It seemed like a step in reverse for the NCAA’s leadership.
After eight years at the helm, it’s still difficult to discern if Emmert is expressing his own viewpoints or simply reflecting the sentiments of his political bosses on the board. Early in his tenure, it was clear that he was leading the charge to take down Penn State and Miami in what became deeply emotional and personal cases. More recently, Emmert the activist seems to have done a 180, happy to remind everyone that it’s not him, it’s the membership. He gave the impression of being a survivor in San Antonio rather than the leader he resembled in December when he challenged the board of university presidents and chancellors to seek and accept change to the collegiate model.
During his state of the union inside the Alamodome, the first question to Emmert asked if the Olympic model of compensating athletes might mitigate the bribery practices that are the subject of the FBI investigation.
But instead of taking a pragmatic tact, Emmert took fewer than 90 seconds to shoot that down with an often-repeated quote: Schools “have consistently said they don’t want student athletes to become employees. They don’t want them playing for compensation.”
For many, that sounded less than open-minded. The basketball commission chaired by Condoleezza Rice could offer an alternative point of view when they report to the board on April 25.
There was a strikingly different tone coming from the hotel lobbies and social gatherings along San Antonio’s River Walk, where athletic directors and other stakeholders said they are much more receptive to ideas like an Olympic model for compensating athletes and the revenue potential that might come from legalized wagering. Those discussions showed a distinct disconnect with the themes coming out of the news conference with Emmert and Kaler, who doubled down against more radical concepts at a time when college athletics are begging to evolve.
The expectation is that the Rice Commission will have recommendations that address existing rules on summer basketball, agents and transfers, but what if they step into more groundbreaking territory? Will Kaler and the board be so quick to dismiss their ideas?
Kaler, a chemical engineer by trade and the board’s chair for the last 20 months, added that the NCAA’s job is to provide opportunities for all of its 460,000-plus student athletes because the NCAA model theoretically doesn’t permit one set of rules for elite athletes and a different set of rules for the rank and file, even though they’re clearly not the same.
“Our view is we’re going to have college students who are athletes,” Kaler said, not professionals. He went on to warn about the danger of the always-ominous unintended consequences that might come with too much change.
But for insiders, they point to Stanford swimmer Katie Ledecky, who gave up her remaining college eligibility to turn pro, as an unintended consequence of the current model. She’ll continue to go to class and train at Stanford, but because she’s now seeking to monetize her name and likeness, she won’t be eligible as a college athlete any more.
“We have to think carefully about serving all of the D-I schools, but at the same time getting a clear set of rules and expected behaviors,” Kaler said.
Likewise, the NCAA’s age-old stance on legalized gambling is that it’s wrong and that wagering on college sports should be illegal, even if it’s legal for the professional leagues. Emmert would like to see a “carve out,” so that gambling on college sports will remain illegal.
“We’re waiting to see,” Emmert said of the Supreme Court’s anticipated ruling. “We haven’t had any more discussions about it. We’ll wait for a decision and go from there.”
Emmert said the NCAA won’t be enticed by the revenue potential that the pro leagues are pursuing — a 1 percent “integrity fee” on transactions. The revenue piece “is not something that anybody that’s in college sports thinks is appropriate for colleges and universities,” Emmert told SportsBusiness Journal after his news conference. “So, no, that hasn’t entered the discussion.”
Interestingly, athletic directors are more receptive to at least having a discussion about these hot-button topics, like athlete compensation, than at any previous time. They have concerns about the name and likeness model that would permit some athletes to profit from signing autographs or appearing in advertisements, but they also see benefits.
Revenue from jersey sales at a power five institution amounts to $50,000 to $100,000 annually, which could be distributed through a group licensing arrangement. Hardly a difference-maker for an athletic department with a $100 million budget. Some ADs said they’re already investing revenue from jersey sales into student-athlete programming.
Many ADs also aren’t so quick to denounce the millions in revenue potential that legal wagering would yield, as Emmert suggested. In fact, they’d like to see the numbers if the NCAA collected 1 percent on transactions — wagering on college sports represents about a third of the total bets placed — just to understand what they’re missing. They also see a benefit in legal gambling that’s regulated versus unregulated.
In a sense, Kaler is right. A more progressive NCAA model that incorporates these bold moves would create some unintended consequences. But the NCAA’s insistence on letting perfect get in the way of good is seemingly why the body has been slow to evolve.
The disconnect heard in San Antonio could indicate that dramatic reform to the collegiate model might not come in the form many had anticipated.
“To be blunt, you don’t waste Condoleezza Rice’s time if you’re not serious about [change],” Emmert said.
It will be clear on April 25 if Rice and her colleagues wasted their time when the commission presents its ideas to the board.
