Following a successful 19-year run as Southland Conference Commissioner, Tom Burnett continues to serve Southland institutions as Senior Consultant to Commissioner Chris Grant and the Southland Board of Directors. Burnett served as the Southland’s longest-tenured commissioner, leading the league’s administrative efforts from December 2002 through March 2022.
With more than three decades in conference administrative roles, Burnett has also served in many national positions, including 10 various NCAA committees and councils during his career. Currently, he is completing service as chair of the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Committee that manages the selection and administrative processes for the national championship event, including the NCAA Men’s Final Four. Burnett is just the ninth commissioner, and first since 2009, to chair the basketball committee. He is also the first FCS commissioner to serve in the role.
The league’s television exposure grew exponentially under his watch with the expansion of national and regional coverage, including the Southland’s broadcast agreement with ESPN Networks that provides nearly 300 national broadcasts annually, and was most recently extended through 2024-25. Additionally, the Conference has enjoyed national and regional broadcasting partnerships with Eleven Sports, Sinclair Broadcasting/American Sports Network, Cox Sports Television, Fox College Sports, Fox Sports Southwest and AT&T SportsNet Southwest during his tenure. The award-winning Southland Conference Television Network existed from 2008-2014, and this creative in-house broadcast venture featured over 170 unique sports and promotional telecasts to a potential viewing audience of more than 13 million television households.
Burnett also led a successful community-wide effort to bring the NCAA Division I Football Championship Games to the Southland’s home base of Frisco, Texas, as the league has served as the host conference for the national title contests at Toyota Stadium since 2011. The NCAA has subsequently renewed the agreement three times to keep the championship game in Frisco minimally through the 2025 event.
He also initiated the Southland’s football officiating consortium with the Big 12 Conference in 2007, a first of its kind dual program that combined singular training, observation, video review and development, a model followed by many other Division I conferences today. And in 2014, the Southland became the first FCS conference to implement full NCAA football instant replay for all home games.
He also served as a member of the Board of Managers for College Football Officiating (CFO), LLC, an entity created by the NCAA and the Collegiate Commissioners Association to enhance and address college football’s officiating matters. Burnett is a member of the National Football Foundation/College Football Hall of Fame’s Awards Committee and the NFF’s Divisional Honors Court. He formerly served on the Board of Directors for NCAA Football.
A former member of both the NCAA’s Division I Committee on Academic Performance and the Division I Football Academic Working Group, Burnett also served as the FCS Vice President for the Collegiate Commissioners Association (CCA) in 2007-08.
He represented the Southland Conference on the NCAA Division I Management Council in 2004-05 and served on the Division I FCS Governance Committee from 2004-06. Burnett previously served on the NCAA Playing Rules Oversight Panel, the NCAA Baseball Rules Committee and Women’s College Basketball Officiating (WCBO), LLC.
In 2004, Burnett began the league’s renewed in-house efforts to secure corporate sponsorships. Since then, the Southland has secured sponsorship agreements with dozens of national and regional companies. The Southland’s corporate sales and marketing rights are now represented nationally by Van Wagner Sports and Entertainment (VWSE).
He also initiated efforts in 2007 to bring the Southland Conference basketball tournaments to a neutral site in the Houston area, giving the league a year-end celebration of the sport at a centralized location near much of the Southland’s largest alumni and student bases. The tournament remained in Katy, Texas, in the western Houston suburbs through 2022.
Prior to joining the Southland, Burnett spent nearly 11 years in a number of roles with the Sun Belt Conference in New Orleans, including stints as associate and assistant commissioner, and director of communications. He also served two years on the staff of the American South Conference, and started his career in student and full-time roles on the athletic staff at Louisiana Tech University.
A native of Houston, Burnett is a 1988 graduate of Louisiana Tech, where he studied journalism and spent one year as the sports editor of the school’s student newspaper. He and his wife Tracy are the parents of a son, Cole, and a daughter, Jesse.
Burnett’s tenure followed former Southland commissioners Greg Sankey (1996-2002), Britton Banowsky (1994-96), Bill Belknap (1991-93), Don Landry (1987-90), Dick Oliver (1971-87) and Taylor Wilkins (1963-71).