NCAA President Charlie Baker shared a memo with membership on Friday that outlined efforts his organization has made to cut costs, per documents obtained by Sports Business Journal.
The memo notes that the NCAA has cut national office spending by 10% halfway through the fiscal year 2026 and references “additional spending reductions going into fiscal year 2027.”
The documents also suggest, going forward, the NCAA will hold fewer in-person committee meetings, make cuts to administrative programming and offer “fewer in-person education sessions for members.”
Postgraduate scholarship funding that the NCAA has provided is also slated to be reduced, the documents say.
Those who received Friday’s memo include athletics directors, athletics diversity and inclusion designees, conference commissioners, presidents and chancellors and SWAs, among others, a source told SBJ.
Like much of the rest of the college sports ecosystem, the NCAA has been working through myriad outside costs related to the House settlement, ongoing litigation and more. Those rising costs have led Baker and his staff to continue modernizing the national office through varying initiatives and changes to business operations.
The memo Friday is reflective of the organization’s efforts to right-size spending, though notably it specifies the NCAA will raise spending around athletes and championship events.
Baker noted the NCAA will increase its investment in “the student-athlete championship experience” by nearly $50M next fiscal year. That includes more than $18M related to the expansion of the Division I men’s and women’s basketball tournaments, $5M for Division I women’s basketball distribution fund and another $4M for the addition of new championships.
“While most members won’t experience any change in services provided by the NCAA, in the days ahead the national office will be communicating to certain groups about changes to some programming and meetings,” Baker wrote. “Please know these adjustments are necessary for the NCAA to best serve the 550,000 student-athletes competing across the country.”
