The NCAA’s former chief operating officer and president combined to make over $6.8 million in the 2022 fiscal year, according to an association tax filing released on Wednesday. At the same time, the NCAA’s overall workforce shrank to its lowest number in eight years.
Donald Remy, who served as NCAA chief operating officer through mid-July 2021 before leaving to become Deputy Secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs, was paid nearly $3.6 million on his way out of Indianapolis. Of that, $2.4 million came by way of a severance payment. Remy left the VA on April 1.
Mark Emmert, meanwhile, earned just under $3.3 million in his last full year as NCAA president. Emmert, who was replaced by former Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker on March 1, is likely due millions of dollars more that will be reported on future tax filings. Stanley Wilcox, the NCAA executive vice president, was the third seven-figure earner, pocketing total compensation of $1.48 million, while NCAA chief medical officer Brian Hainline was paid just under a million dollars. The tax filing covered the 12 months ending in August 2022.
The NCAA’s overall revenue, which had been previously reported, was $1.22 billion, up from $1.1 billion in 2020. The association reported ending last fiscal year with just shy of a half-of-billion dollars in net assets or fund balances.
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the NCAA’s workforce dropped to 594 employees, down from a high of 657 in 2019. The last time the NCAA reported having fewer than 600 staffers was in 2014.
The legal community remains among the biggest beneficiaries of the NCAA’s troubles. The association reported spending $53 million on legal bills in 2021, after spending almost just as much the year prior. Law firm Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, which defended the NCAA against claims related to concussions and CTE in college football players, received about $9.3 million for legal services rendered.
Before becoming its chief operating officer, Remy was the NCAA’s top in-house lawyer, architecting the governing body’s legal strategy over most of the past decade, a period in which it suffered a series of setbacks that permanently altered its future. As Sportico previously reported, Remy disclosed during the course of his confirmation to the VA that, while simultaneously working at the NCAA, he had served on the board of directors for a company that was administering a court-appointed, concussion monitoring program for the NCAA.
In a statement last February, Remy said that he had “properly disclosed and received approval” for his position with the company, Garretson Resolution Group. In April, Remy stepped down from his government post after a fraught 19 months, which included the troubled deployment of the VA’s electronic health record modernization system.
Earlier this month, Remy was elected to serve on the Mayo Clinic Board of Trustees.
