Indiana has locked in Scott Dolson for the long haul.
The Hoosiers athletic director signed an amended contract that runs through 2031, a deal finalized on Nov. 25, 2025, according to documents obtained by The Herald-Times, part of the USA TODAY Network. The extension came a month after Indiana announced a long-term deal for football coach Curt Cignetti, the hire Dolson made that helped change the direction of the program.
Dolson’s new deal includes a base salary of $1.15 million per year, which is $200,000 more than he was making under his previous extension. He also signed another amendment in June 2026 that affected his deferred-compensation plan.
Under the revised terms, Indiana will contribute $500,000 each July - up from $125,000 - for the life of the extension. If Dolson stays on as athletic director through December 2031, or if he is fired without cause before then, he will be fully vested in that deferred-compensation account. The rest of the financial incentives and the buyout language stayed the same as in the 2024 extension.
Dolson remains one of the Big Ten’s longest-serving athletic directors, now in his seventh year, though his total annual compensation still sits in the middle of the conference. Several Big Ten athletic directors are earning $2 million or more annually, including Penn State’s Pat Kraft, Michigan’s Warde Manuel, Ohio State’s Ross Bjork, Illinois’ Josh Whitman and Minnesota’s Mark Coyle.
The extension arrives during a remarkable run for Indiana football. Dolson’s decision to bring in Cignetti after the 2023 season has been central to the program’s rise, and Cignetti has since guided the Hoosiers to back-to-back College Football Playoff appearances with a 27-2 overall record. In that stretch, the Hoosiers have gone from the losingest program in college football history to national champions.
Cignetti has repeatedly pointed to Dolson and IU President Pam Whitten for backing the program with the support and resources it needed.
Dolson’s profile has risen well beyond Bloomington, too. After Indiana’s win over Miami at Hard Rock Stadium, he was named the NACDA Athletics Director of the Year Award and became a finalist for the Sports Business Journal Athletic Director of the Year. He also was one of four athletic directors chosen for a White House roundtable on possible college athletics reforms, and afterward he was named to one of the committees President Donald Trump formed to make recommendations on those reforms.
“I think everybody will tell you in the Big Ten all the people that get to work with Scott, he's tremendous to work with,” Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti said at the conference’s football media days. “He's collaborative.
He cares deeply about the entire league. He fights hard for Indiana.”
Dolson’s time at Indiana has covered a turbulent stretch, starting when he replaced Fred Glass in March 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic began. He helped the athletic department recover from a $25 million shortfall, and his fundraising work put the school in position for the NIL and revenue-sharing era.
By service time, Dolson is now among the Big Ten’s longest-tenured athletic directors, behind only Oregon’s Rob Mullens. Michigan’s Warde Manuel, Illinois’ Josh Whitman and Minnesota’s Mark Coyle are also in that upper tier, while a wave of newer hires has come through the conference in recent years.
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