Steve Berkowitz, the money man at USA Today, released an article followed up by a few tweets today detailing compensation of NCAA President Mark Emmert and a number of his NCAA colleagues.
According to tax documents obtained by Berkowitz, in 2016 Emmert made $2.4 million, which was a bump of nearly half a million dollars from what he made in 2015.
While that's more than enough to stoke the fires of the "players need to be paid" crowd out there, it was something in his closing paragraph - which he followed up with a tweet of - that really caught my eye.
That's right. 11 NCAA execs, including Emmert, were credited with total compensations of $450,000 annually or more in 2016. Among those named was NCAA executive vice president Oliver Luck at over $855k, who has since left to become the commissioner of the second coming of the XFL.
According to a quote in Berkowtiz's article, the Board of Governors decide NCAA executive salaries.
“Members of the committee are university and college presidents from all three divisions. To assist its efforts, the Executive Committee uses an independent third party. This third party undertakes market surveys to ensure salaries of NCAA executives are similar to other comparable executive positions.”