SBJ College: Mark Emmert's tumultuous tenure coming to an end

The first indicator that we were dealing with a different dude came in August 2010 when Emmert dismissed Tom Jernstedt in the most unceremonious way possible. Emmert hadn’t even officially started the job as NCAA president when he re-organized the front office and Jernstedt was odd man out. His departure was part of an NCAA news release on a late Friday afternoon that was 24 paragraphs long. The news about Jernstedt, a 38-year NCAA fixture and pioneer, was delivered in the 23rd paragraph.

How fitting that last Saturday some 200 of the most influential figures in college sports gathered in Indianapolis for a memorial service to honor the late Jernstedt, and now, just days later, Emmert’s final days at the NCAA have been determined.

The missteps in the Penn State and Miami cases early in Emmert’s administration further highlighted his lack of touch for this job. His critics said Emmert lost focus on the NCAA’s mission as a membership organization where there was no place for Emmert’s swashbuckling attempts to go after the two schools the way he did. Emmert responded over the years by going 180 degrees the other way, putting the ills of college athletics in the lap of the membership. It gave rise to the Power Five commissioners becoming the most powerful figures in college sports -- not the NCAA president.

During Emmert’s tenure, the NCAA enjoyed an explosion of revenue, mostly due to the media contract with CBS and Turner. In its most recent financial release from 2021, the NCAA reported $1.15 billion in total revenue, of which $850 million came from its media contract for men’s March Madness. When Emmert became president in 2010, the contract with CBS paid $633.8 million. The most recent extension -- negotiated in 2016 -- will start in 2024 and take the deal out eight more years to 2032, paying $8.8 billion more over the additional years.

Over his dozen years, though, Emmert distinguished himself as the ultimate survivor. Somehow, as the NCAA’s strategy for name, image and likeness blew up last year and the NCAA suffered an embarrassing defeat in the Supreme Court, the contract extensions kept coming from the board of governors. Until now.

Emmert’s run will end no later than June 2023. It’s time.

Social media was quick to react to the Emmert news.

SI's  Ross Dellenger: "Emmert got his contract extended a year ago this week in news that shocked and, quite honestly, pissed off dozens of athletics administrators. There is a lot of 'finally' from the group this evening. ... Remember the NCAA is going through a transformation process to its governance structure. Few expected Mark Emmert to preside over the *new* post-transformed NCAA, whatever it may be. For one, he's 69-years-old. For two, he's long ago lost the confidence of his members."

Stadium's  Jeff Goodman tweeted, "Should have been forced out a long time ago." The Austin American-Statesman's  Brian Davis: "There was a time people would've been excited by that news. Now, it feels more like, whatever man."

The Ringer's  Rodger Sherman: "Mark Emmert did a truly bad job as NCAA president. He put the NCAA in bad positions, cost them a lot of money, was really obnoxious if people questioned him. Luckily he was also bad at trying to prevent college athletes from getting paid and lost most of the fights he chose." The Athletic's  Kyle Tucker: "Emmert wants a Coach K-style retirement tour? I would pay good money to watch him trotted out at several games over the next year. His send-off gifts would be interesting."

They came from across the country and all corners of collegiate sports business to pay their respects to the late Tom Jernstedt on Saturday. Fittingly, they gathered in a basketball gym in Indianapolis -- Salesforce Court at Gainbridge Fieldhouse -- to see the life-sized bronze statue of him that was unveiled during a memorial service.

Fifteen speakers took the stage to share their best Jernstedt stories. There were close friends like Jim Host and Ron Stratten, and power players like Jim Delany and Val Ackerman. There were ADs who called Jernstedt their mentor like Stanford’s Bernard Muir and Alabama’s Greg Byrne, and those who sat across the negotiating table, like former CBS and ESPN exec Len DeLuca and longtime ESPN exec Carol Stiff. CFP Exec Director Bill Hancock, NCAA Senior VP Dan Gavitt and Texas Deputy AD Chris Plonsky were among those who also shared from their longtime friendships, as did Pacers Vice Chair Jim Morris, who was instrumental in making the service and statue happen.

After the event, many of them retired to the Jernstedt home in Indy at the invitation of his widow, Kris, who tirelessly organized the event and, as expected, didn’t miss a single detail. Over lasagna, a trio of sliders and several bottles of pinot noir -- Tom’s red of choice -- the guests replayed an afternoon of storytelling. The themes were clear: friendship; integrity; and an undying unselfishness to let others dominate the spotlight while Tom stayed in the shadows.

DeLuca put it as well as anyone -- Jernstedt was a connector. “How many people in this room wouldn’t be here today without Tom?” DeLuca asked. So many of the relationships in that gym Saturday started with Tom at the center of them, he said.

Muir suggested that each time they return to Indy and visit Jernstedt’s statue, they touch the basketball he holds between his hands, similar to the way Clemson’s football players touch Howard’s Rock before running down the hill. Those gathered there, most of them people, who, like Jernstedt, impact college athletics from behind the scenes, applauded the idea. From Jernstedt’s nearly 40 years at the NCAA, where he became known as father of the Final Four, a new tradition was born Saturday, inside a basketball gym.

Here’s what industry experts were saying at the Jernstedt service when they weren’t talking about Tom (spoiler alert: name, image and likeness dominated):

• The NCAA has gone to great lengths over the last century to keep boosters out of college athletics. NIL collectives -- boosters paying players -- have destroyed that in a matter of months.

• There’s little-to-no interest from Congress to standardize NIL rules across college athletics because no one can articulate who is being harmed. If there was evidence of someone being financially hurt or significantly damaged, that might change. Until then, don’t expect a helping hand.

• A burned-out coach or AD complaining about NIL and the transfer portal by saying, “This isn’t what I signed up for,” doesn’t qualify as being harmed.

• The transfer portal has the potential to be much more damaging to college sports than NIL.

• The Kaplan Report’s suggestion that the NCAA women’s basketball tournament could fetch more than $100 million annually for its media rights is farfetched, although it was unanimous that the NCAA should break it off. It is currently packaged with other championships in its ESPN deal.

• Until a media company emerges as legitimate competition to ESPN for the rights, it’ll be extremely difficult to maximize value for the women’s basketball championship.

Grant Jones was brought in 16 months ago to oversee Learfield’s content division, meaning he was tasked with helping schools use content to better engage with their fans, while also providing the company’s sales team with more sponsorship inventory. Learfield yesterday renamed the division to Learfield Studios in hopes of increasing its awareness among the company’s 180 school clients.

Jones addressed the opportunities for schools to leverage their content when I caught up with him yesterday.

Kansas worked with Learfield to make “The Blueprint,” a four-episode series of insider football programming. Why the Jayhawks? Jones: “Kansas wanted to do something to get fans excited about football season and, frankly, season ticket sales. This was a way to drive awareness.”

Where do fans find this content? Jones: “These schools have anywhere from five to 20 different teams and some might be on Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and they all need content to push out so they can engage with the fans.”

Are you hearing from schools about the direct-to-consumer or OTT model? Jones: “We’ve heard from a few, yes, and I think that is something we will be talking about in the weeks and months to come. We’ve talked about not just creating content, but also new ways for fans to consume the content. This does give us the opportunity to experiment with things that are along the lines of Disney+ or something similar. Bigger picture, I do think there is an opportunity for content that’s behind a paywall, but that is something that will depend on the school.”

Are you any less bullish about direct-to-consumer after Netflix’s latest setback? Jones: “Netflix is facing all of these competitors that now have their own exclusive content, like Paramount+ and Amazon. If we were to launch something like that, a paywall-based offering at one of our schools, we’d want to be really strategic about what stays behind the paywall and what content is used to drive awareness on the platform. The Netflix model, where everything is behind the paywall, is a tough business.”

Is there an intersection where this type of content meets NIL and, say, a brand ambassador becomes a central figure in a program that is sponsored by the athlete’s company? Jones: “Absolutely. Those kinds of opportunities are why you have a full-content studio. The student athletes need to make content and the brand needs content to promote the partnership it has with the student athlete. A big part of what we want to do just tell the stories of the student athletes and when a brand is on the front end of it, you know they are already on board.”

Sodexo, the host concessionaire at the Final Four in Caesars Superdome earlier this month, reported these info nuggets:

• 140,000 fans hosted over two nights of games

• 4,000+ Sodexo Live! employees on hand

• 100% cashless transactions

• 500 point-of-sale positions each night

• 165 suite spaces activated

• The CFP has chosen RevelXP to reimagine its hospitality program -- from sales and marketing to a more robust game day -- by the time the national championship game rolls into SoFi Stadium next January.

• March Madness brought the anticipated bump back from the declining sports betting handles of February in most of the 15 states that have reported handle from that month thus far, reports my colleague Bill King.

• Penn State is eyeing Boston College's Patrick Kraft as its next AD, notes ESPN.com. Current AD Sandy Barbour is set to retire this summer. Kraft was an SBJ Forty Under 40 honoree in 2016.

• Plenty of other FBS AD news in recent days: Doug Knuth is out at Nevada; Tom Bowen is stepping down for health reasons; N.C. State extended Boo Corrigan through 2027; and Rutgers extended Pat Hobbs through 2028.

• DLR Group and Core Construction were the key entities behind the design and build for Northern Arizona's new $46 million Student-Athlete High Performance Center, which opened last weekend, notes SBJ's Bret McCormick.