College sports has a new money problem - and St. John's may be the latest example: 'It's the Wild West'

By Weston Blasi

St. John's University fired its basketball program's general manager, Matt Abdelmassih, this week. He was reportedly managing a $10 million roster.

St. John's University spent $10 million on its basketball roster - well above the $3 million on average that a Power 5 school spends.

Name, image and likeness (NIL) deals have flooded college sports with hundreds of millions of dollars - but universities and team general managers have been operating with little formal oversight, which is creating financial and accountability risks.

The latest high-profile case: St. John's University fired its basketball program's general manager, Matt Abdelmassih, on Tuesday over scrutiny of financial deals he made with athletes and their representatives. Abdelmassih had been on administrative leave since Dec. 20.

The roster budget for St. John's basketball team is estimated to be more than $10 million for the 2025-26 season, which ranks the program among the top 10 biggest spenders in the country. The average Power 5 college basketball team spends about $3 million.

Abdelmassih said in a Wednesday statement that he "operated honestly and transparently, working within the parameters I was given" during his two-plus years as GM.

"College sports is in a complicated moment, and I took on that challenge with professionalism, care and accountability," he added.

Abdelmassih was one of the many university workers across the country who have found themselves working as a college sports GM. It's a role that's become more prevalent in recent years as more schools have involved themselves with millions of dollars in NIL money. They help manage a team's recruiting and roster construction, which includes player compensation through NIL and revenue-sharing payments, as well as fundraising.

Athletes do not receive money directly from colleges for playing on their teams; instead, they get paid indirectly from NIL collectives, donors and sponsorship deals, which the school and team GM can broker. Collectives are not run by the schools; instead, they are affiliated with them, and GMs have to manage that money to build a roster.

But many of these GMs have little experience operating with high-level budgets to build a team roster, a role typically reserved for professional sports teams. In addition to having little experience, there are few formal structures for NIL deals, which can have big consequences.

The NCAA largely stepped back as an NIL regulator after a series of court decisions. State NIL laws vary widely, and Congress has yet to enact major legislation on NIL, although several hearings and proposals have been put forth. The College Sports Commission, an independent body created by the Power 5 NCAA conferences, recently began conducting some NIL oversight in 2025, but it will take time to judge its success. The CSC's legal backing is also still unclear.

"It's the Wild West," Lisa Delpy Neirotti, the director of the sports-management program at George Washington University's School of Business, told MarketWatch. "Reading between the lines, something must have happened [at St. John's]."

Abdelmassih has denied any wrongdoing, but Neirotti believes that issues of broken promises over money will continue to happen when there is inconsistent oversight.

"You can give a player a million dollars and not get anything back," Neirotti said. "The player can then stay one year and leave - there's no commitment."

These disputes aren't unique to St. John's. At the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, quarterback Matthew Sluka sat out the remainder of the football team's 2024 season after claiming he was never paid $100,000 promised to him by team staff for transferring from the College of the Holy Cross. At the University of Tennessee, quarterback Nico Iamaleava skipped practices in 2025 after signing a record-setting $8 million NIL deal before eventually transferring to UCLA.

"I don't know what Abdelmassih promised the St. John's athletes or didn't promise them," Neirotti said. But she noted that if a GM offers a student-athlete $4 million to stay for multiple years, the athlete "can say no, just give me the $4 million" and transfer after one year.

St. John's athletic department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. St. John's men's basketball coach Rick Pitino said after Abdelmassih's dismissal that "it's never good to see people go, but in the eyes of the university it was very warranted, so we move on."

After winning its first outright Big East regular-season title in 40 years and its first Big East tournament championship in 25 years last season, St. John's has struggled this season. The preseason No. 5 is now unranked with a 12-5 record, already matching last year's total losses, despite a 5-1 conference record.

See: College basketball stars now earn money and often switch teams, so schools are hiring GMs. Here's what they say about the job.

Despite growing uncertainty around payment structures for college athletes, athletic departments are increasingly relying on GMs to manage NIL deals, roster budgets and informal salary structures. But these roles exist in a landscape with little formal oversight, where even experienced managers navigate high-stakes financial and reputational risks.

"It feels like there's more every day," St. Bonaventure University basketball GM Adrian Wojnarowski told MarketWatch last year. "The landscape demands it."

Even so, college basketball GMs like Alex Kline at Syracuse University stress that managing money and player relationships requires careful judgment.

"How can we be smart with our money, but also fiscally responsible?" Kline told MarketWatch. "I wear a lot of different hats. If we need to help facilitate a marketing deal, each person in this GM role needs to know what they do best."

Yet even with careful management, college GMs seemingly have no road map as they navigate the NIL era.

Read on: Some LIV golfers like Brooks Koepka can now return to the PGA - but they'll pay a big price for it

-Weston Blasi

This content was created by MarketWatch, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. MarketWatch is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

01-15-26 1737ET