Sunday Quickies: Time to Fire Mark Emmert?

Paul Finebaum said the NCAA President should be fired.

By Zac Oakes@ZacOakes Jul 19, 2020, 6:40am EDT

NCAA Basketball: Final Four-NCAA President Dr. Mark Emmert-Press Conference

Should NCAA President Mark Emmert be fired from his position?

One of the most notable voices in college athletics is calling for Emmert to be let go from his position due to a “complete failure at leadership.”

Paul Finebaum went on ESPN’s “Get Up” on Friday, and called out Emmert for leadership failures in the midst of COVID-19 and didn’t hold back in his criticism of the NCAA President.

“They say that Mark Emmert is a complete failure at leadership,” Finebaum responded on the show. “First of all, it was nice of Mark Emmert to come out of the witness protection program yesterday to let us know what we should all know about the college football season. He is the president of the NCAA. He makes three and a half million dollars a year and him telling us there’s a problem is like a meteorologist telling us during a hurricane that it’s raining outside.

He is a complete, abject failure at leadership. He’s been derelict in his duty, and quite frankly, I think he should be fired,” Finebaum continued. “We might wait until this storm passes to get rid of him, but he has no use whatsoever except taking up the airwaves with idiotic, inane and unimportant statements. So, bottom line is that Mack Brown is saying what a lot of people are saying, college football needs leadership. They have five conference commissioners, but no one, no one is in charge.”

But Finebaum didn’t stop there. He went on to criticize Emmert’s handling of the name, image, and likeness issue that is staring in the face of college athletics and said Emmert is a major reason why the NCAA is beginning to lose relevance.

“And frankly, the NCAA has really been deemed useless. … Emmert’s been fighting the professionalism of sports, he’s been fighting the NIL and that’s why it needs to be blown up and we need to start over again because this is a terrible system.”

Finebaum’s criticism of Emmert is one of the most direct and intense we’ve heard in a while. Emmert certainly doesn’t seem to have a lot of support from the general public, and it begs the question of how much support he has among the conference commissioners, athletic directors, and others.

Could this be the beginning of the end of Mark Emmert’s tenure at the head of the NCAA?