For the 2015 fiscal year, the NCAA budgeted $6.7 million for legal expenses. It wound up spending $25 million. CFO Kathleen McNeely’s reaction to the disparity? “I was naïve in believing that our legal fees would start to come down, I’m willing to admit that. It’s a litigious environment.”
No shit, Sherlock. I wonder how that happened.
The dramatic increase in legal costs occurred amid an array of legal challenges, including the Ed O’Bannon antitrust case and a suit stemming from the Jerry Sandusky child sex-abuse scandal at Penn State. U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken ruled on the O’Bannon case in August 2014, but the NCAA’s appeal to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals occurred during 2015.
It’s like they expect to be able to do whatever they want without anyone objecting to it. Including their own lawyers.
… She said that for the 2016 fiscal year, the association again budgeted $6.7 million for outside legal fees, and while she is not yet certain of what the final expense total will be, she said it could be more than $20 million.
As a result, she told the business managers, the NCAA’s fiscal 2017 expense budget includes $20 million for third-party legal fees “and we’re asking our attorneys to try to live within that.”
I’m sure representing the NCAA is a real privilege.
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I’ve said in the past, NCAA should be dissolved.
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Give those money back to the schools, fans, and athletes.
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Why bother making a budget.
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Every time something comes out in the press involving the NCAA and their legal issues I’m left wondering “can they really BE that stupid? Can ANY group of human beings truly be that clueless?” Yes, yes they can.In a corporate environment when you budget 6.7 million for something but end up spending 25 million the CEO loses his job the next day. At the NCAA you get a raise. Keep in mind though, they exist because the colleges and universities of America want them to.
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Running a cartel seems like a good gig.
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Yeah, but if you do that in the federal government, you get re-elected or promoted. Maybe the suits at the NCAA are angling for federal gigs.
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Their attorneys could live within any reasonable range if they (the NCAA) would just not be so stupid about what they want. Litigiousness is always a two way street.
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Someone should suggest they start calling their lawyers student-athletes so they wouldn’t have to pay them. They could tell the lawyers representing the NCAA should be privilege enough.
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Saw the header and just knew this column was going to be about McGoofy!
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Very nice.
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