Today’s guest columnist is Joe Moglia, Executive Advisor to the President and Chairman Emeritus of Athletics at Coastal Carolina University.
The NCAA makes some big—frankly incredible—claims about its “mission and priorities” on its website. Things like “coordinate and deliver safe, fair and inclusive competition,” “provide world-class services to student-athletes and members that leverage the NCAA’s collective scale,” “grow the college sports ecosystem,” and “deliver sustainable funding for the NCAA mission.”
It all sounds pretty good. It’s also a house of cards.
Over the past four fiscal years, the organization spent an astonishing $234 million on legal fees in battles against antitrust lawsuits and NIL litigation. This is on top of $15 million they (alongside the Power 5) have spent lobbying Congress since 2019. They have little to show for it, apart from a victory in a wrongful death lawsuit related to a concussion.
The NCAA has lost repeatedly in court on NIL. A much ballyhooed settlement is in grave peril, following Judge Claudia Wilken’s call for the parties to “go back to the drawing board.” The collapse of the settlement would be an existential threat to the NCAA, yet all of the organization’s spending on high cost attorneys has failed to yield results.
In 2011, the NCAA only spent $4.1 million on legal fees, compared to $61.5 million last year. The organization’s investments only generated $2.5 million more than they expended on legal fees last year. This is the business equivalent of a 103 degree temperature. Something is very, very wrong.
In what universe is wasting nearly a quarter billion dollars over four years on attorneys— who are fighting against compensation for players—in the best interest of any of the organization’s stated values?
Adding insult to injury, former NCAA President Mark Emmert was awarded $4.3 million in severance—compared to the $3.3 million he earned in 2022—when he stepped down last year. For what? He did a terrible job running the organization. He failed to lead on NIL, lost in the Supreme Court, and left his successor no choice but to try (so far unsuccessfully) to lobby Washington in hopes of cleaning up the mess.
If the CEO of a major company set cash on fire like this, he or she would be sent packing and the board would be in crisis mode. But the NCAA gets special treatment, because it pretends to be a non-profit that protects young athletes. Yet what kind of non-profit generates $1.26 billion in TV revenue?
In reality, the NCAA drains money from the system, spends hundreds of millions protecting itself, and delivers little of value to its member organizations or student athletes. The purpose of the NCAA has become the perpetuation of the NCAA, not the protection of student athletes and universities.
The money that was spent compensating Emmert and paying white shoe law firms could have been put to use by athletics departments and universities—or used to compensate professional student athletes. But people have forgotten that the NCAA is supposed to work for them—not the other way around. Eventually, university leaders are going to have to wake up to the fact that the NCAA is siphoning off revenue that they could use for other things and instead spends it on self-protection and compensation. The NCAA has demonstrated time and again that it cannot solve the issues facing college sports. It can barely defend itself. It’s time for college athletics to move on.
Moglia is the former CEO and chairman of TD Ameritrade and current chairman of Fundamental Global LLC and Capital Wealth Advisors. In 2012, he became Coastal Carolina University’s head football coach, leading the team to four conference championships and an overall record of 56-22. He is now the Executive Advisor to the President and Chairman Emeritus of Athletics at Coastal Carolina. You can find him on his website, on his LinkedIn page and on Twitter.
