Over the past year, the NCAA has been engrossed in making major structural alterations in order to survive the winds of change in college sports. One of its most important tasks: Finding a replacement for NCAA President Mark Emmert, who will step down by June 30, 2023 — and figuring out what the job will look like.
Months after announcing Emmert’s imminent departure, the governing body finally has answers.
The NCAA and its search firm, TurnkeyZRG, are creating a list of potential hires and targeting an announcement by the NCAA Convention in January 2023, Board of Governors president Linda Livingstone said in an interview with Collegiate Sports Connect.
But that isn’t a hard deadline. “We want to make sure we get the right person,” she said.
The governing body has also posted a 2,416-word-long job description — the result of detailed research of what NCAA members wanted.
TurnkeyZRG conducted nine listening sessions and a survey, and “continued meetings with different groups as we go through this process…some in higher ed, some in professional sports, some in media and entertainment to get a bit broader perspective,” Livingstone said.
Among the more notable duties: The NCAA is looking for someone who can maximize existing revenue streams and find new ones — in other words, treat the NCAA like a business. But true to its own historic irony, the NCAA also wants someone who can protect and disseminate the values of college sports — i.e. its amateurism model.
The job description is likely still malleable, however, given that the new president will likely be presiding over a governing body that looks completely different from its current structure.
The NCAA implemented a completely new constitution earlier this year — but has not yet finalized a number of key details at the divisional level, from infractions processes to how each division will look.
