Mark Emmert Is Nailing This Whole Job Thing - Except For Costing The NCAA $3.5 BILLION, Refusing To Meet With Players And Blaming Everyone Else For Inequalities

[Yahoo] - All those are going to pale in comparison to what promises to be Emmert’s defining legacy of incompetence at the NCAA, a mistake that’s going to likely cost the association more than $3.5 billion in upcoming years. In 2016, the NCAA had eight years left on its NCAA tournament television contract with CBS and Turner and decided not to take it to market.

Instead, the NCAA extended the deal until 2032 at a modest increase of less than 3% annually. At the time, Emmert took a victory lap in the media, saying that uncertainties in the “evolving media landscape” led to the extension.

Listen, you gotta hand it to Mark Emmert. The man is doing an incredible job of getting quite literally everyone to hate him. Granted, when you make EVERY single wrong decision it's not hard. This is where it's actually hilarious. Everyone just chalked up Emmert's dumbass decisions for the love of money. Well, guess what? He's literally costing the NCAA billions of dollars simply because he fucked up. It's not like the NCAA Tournament is some new thing. All we ever do is hear about viewings and how much money it brings in. You really think it wouldn't get more than 3% increase? I'm pretty sure if I asked anyone at Barstool, they'd negotiate a better deal. 

But to make it even better than that, he pulled an ultimate villain move: 

It’s likely not a coincidence that after the NCAA tournament television deal was announced, Emmert received a 60% pay bump – from $2.4 million to $3.9 million – in the fiscal year from 2017 to 2018. It’s easy to justify a raise to your bosses when you can show them billions on the way.

Job well done, Mark! That's at least what I assumed he said to himself as he received a pay bump. Imagine thinking that Mark Emmert makes $3.9 million. It'd be like a podcast centered around college basketball that only gets 4 trivia questions right. Impossible. Speaking of money, you'd think that Emmert would at least focus on that right? The entire argument right now is name, image and likeness. It's really not that difficult, I promise you it's not. Players are asking for the right to make money off their own name, image and likeness. They aren't asking for a salary. They aren't asking for anything like that. They just want the ability to make more money. 

We know about the #NotNCAAProperty movement that college basketball players are pushing during the NCAA Tournament. One of their demands was just a meeting with Emmert to discuss it. Seems reasonable. If you have a problem with something, you talk to your boss, right? Well, Emmert is just flat out delaying the entire thing until the NCAA Tournament is over because he doesn't want his money maker disrupted: 

Just to be clear, EVERYONE is in Indianapolis - you know the place where the NCAA is headquartered? Seems like a logical decision to meet with everyone while they are there. Why risk the potential of some sort of boycott during your money maker? Then again, you're already on the hook for costing the NCAA $3.5 billion, what's more at that point? Are they going to play the games? Sure. But guess what? They could boycott the open Final Four practice. It's just a PR disaster that you can avoid. Not to mention, it's not that fucking hard. Bills are being passed around the country for NIL. Let these guys make money on their own name, image and likeness. Who cares if it's $500 or $50,000? What's going to happen? The best basketball players are going to go to Kentucky, Duke, Kansas and UNC? Can't imagine living in that world. What's going to happen? There's going to be a competitive disadvantage for smaller schools? Can't imagine living in that world. Oh, wait. That's happened since the day the NCAA started. 

BUT WAIT. We have more. 

[The Athletic] - Since then Emmert has deflected, denied, blamed and punted. What he hasn’t done is lead, revealing himself once again to be little more than an ineffective piece of puffery when his organization needs him most. This is not new. In his tenure, Emmert has proven to be a vital commodity when one needs a windbag; not so much in a crisis.

The latest in a long list of disasters came this week. As the video of the San Antonio weight room raged, Emmert sat in a conference room with The Athletic, The New York Times and USA Today — an interview only arranged after The Athletic asked for it — saying it was “inexcusable” but insisting he didn’t have all the details. This was two days after the whole thing started. You’d think by then he’d want to know exactly what happened.

Instead, he sent a scathing letter to his staff and then stood in front of a group at the Economic Club of Indiana, and wrote the whole thing off as a social media tempest in a teapot. Insisting the space shown wasn’t meant to be used as a weight room, he said, “but once the video is out, the video is out,” a dismissal nearly as arrogant as it is obtuse.

Just passing blame, granted that's a move that everyone loves to make, you can't do that when you're fucking Mark Emmert. Again, the women's NCAA Tournament is asking for much. Give them the NCAA floor like we see for the men's Tournament. Give them a regular weight room right off the bat. Seems like common sense shit. The logistics of the two events should be the same. They aren't asking to play in a football arena for the Final Four. They aren't asking for anything crazy. They just want normal shit. How you don't realize simple common sense and avoiding horrendous PR isn't that tough. Yet, Mark Emmert just keeps fucking up.