Massachusetts governor to become new NCAA president
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Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker speaks in Boston. Photo: Matt Stone/MediaNews Group/Boston Herald via Getty Images
Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker (R) will be the next NCAA president, the organization announced Thursday.
Why it matters: Baker will assume the role as the landscape of college athletics remains in flux, especially around players with name, image and likeness (NIL) deals.
- The NCAA president is also one of the highest-paid positions in college sports.
Driving the news: Baker will begin his new role in March. He did not run for re-election in 2022, and his term as governor ends on Jan. 5.
- Baker, a Harvard grad, will be the first NCAA president who joins without a background in college athletics or higher education, according to Sports Business Journal.
- He played power forward for Harvard's basketball team during the 1977-78 season and had ambitions to be a sports writer at one point.
What he's saying: "The NCAA is confronting complex and significant challenges, but I am excited to get to work as the awesome opportunity college athletics provides to so many students is more than worth the challenge," Baker said in a statement.
Flashback: The NCAA announced in April that its current president, Mark Emmert, would step down from his role after 12 years. He will continue in an advising role moving forward, per The Athletic.
The big picture: The NCAA Board of Governors sought a candidate with deep political experience to navigate a college sports landscape that has come under increasing scrutiny in Washington, D.C., and statehouses across the country, according to Sports Business Journal.
- The NCAA said that Baker's "history of successfully forging bipartisan solutions to complex problems stood out" to the search committee.
- "Gov. Baker has shown a remarkable ability to bridge divides and build bipartisan consensus, taking on complex challenges in innovative and effective ways," said Linda Livingstone, chair of the NCAA Board of Governors, in a statement.
Thought bubble via Axios Boston's Mike Deehan: Baker didn't run for re-election mostly because he couldn't win the GOP primary, but he's still enormously popular.
- A high-profile job like this wouldn't rule out future political speculation either. He's an administrator-type governor, making him qualified to run a large organization like this.
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