NCAA president Mark Emmert has received a contract extension through 2025, the association’s board of governors announced Tuesday.
Emmert, who has served as NCAA president since November 2010, had been under contract through October 2023 with an option through 2024. The NCAA announced the extension as part of a news release that included other action items from the board, including a commitment to modernize rules around name, image and likeness (NIL).
Emmert’s extension received unanimous approval from the board.
In March, Georgetown president Jack DeGioia, the chair of the NCAA’s board of governors, gave Emmert a vote of confidence amid mounting criticism about inequities during the men’s and women’s Division I basketball tournaments. Several commissioners and athletic directors voiced concerns about Emmert’s leadership in media reports in late March and early April.
Emmert, in a letter to staff, acknowledged that “a number of balls were dropped” at the NCAA women’s basketball tournament in San Antonio and that a full review would be conducted.
“I think it would be fair to say that Mark took this very, very seriously and all of my conversations with him — we have had several over the last 10 days — at no point did I ever have the sense that he wasn’t engaging this with the greatest seriousness possible,” DeGioia told The Associated Press in late March.
Emmert has also been facing scrutiny and political pressure for the NCAA’s inability to move forward with proposed reforms to its rules prohibiting athletes from earning money off their NIL.
Dozens of states have bills in the pipeline that will prohibit the NCAA from stopping college athletes from being compensated for endorsement and sponsorship deals. Florida and Mississippi are among the states with laws scheduled to go into effect July 1.
Emmert and the NCAA have turned to federal lawmakers for help with NIL. The NCAA is also awaiting a ruling from the Supreme Court in an antitrust case the association has been fighting for several years.
Earlier this month, the Greater Baton Rouge Business Journal reported that back-channel efforts were underway to recruit Emmert to become LSU’s new president. Emmert, 68, served as LSU’s chancellor from 1999 to 2004, and he is close with athletic director Scott Woodward and others around the university and the athletic program.
He served as president at the University of Washington from 2004 until 2010, when he began his duties at the NCAA.
But Emmert’s name did not appear on a list of candidates from LSU’s presidential search committee.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
