NCAA president Mark Emmert will hold his title until at least 2025, the association's board of governors announced Tuesday. The 68-year-old executive received a contract extension that could see his tenure reach the 15-year mark.
Emmert has been NCAA president since November 2010. His current contract runs through October 2023, but there's an option that can make it run through 2024. The extension was unanimously approved by the board.
The extension comes in the wake of a lot of issues that the NCAA is dealing with in regards to the modernization of its regulations, and criticisms levied at its handling of the NCAA tournament for both men's and women's basketball.
First the modernization bit. The NCAA is dealing with political pressure to allow athletes to make money off their names, images and likenesses. Two states, Florida and Mississippi, have passed laws that will go into effect July 1 which will allow such things, circumnavigating NCAA regulations. Emmert and the association have looked to lawmakers at the federal level to help with these issues -- Emmert has gone on record to call these "existential threats" to college sports -- but dozens of states have bills in some stage of the legislative process trying to replicate what Florida and Mississippi have done.
There's also the issue of the antitrust case in the Supreme Court that the NCAA has been fighting for years, and has yet to receive a ruling on.
As for the tournament handling, there was a viral issue regarding the discrepancy in the kind of amenities women athletes received for their tournament in Texas compared to the kind of stuff the men got in Indianapolis. Emmert noted that a full review would take place as a result of this coming to light, for what it's worth.
