Message framing as institutional maintenance: The National Collegiate Athletic Association’s institutional work of addressing legitimate threats

•This research examined the institutional maintenance work of a sport organization.•Framing theory was used to examine strategic communication as institutional work.•Framed messages delegitimized the challengers defend institutional arrangements.•Framed messages reified the institutionalized norms of governance.This research examined how a dominant sport organization (the National Collegiate Athletic Association) within an organizational field (U.S. intercollegiate athletics) addressed legitimate threats to its governance through the strategic framing of its public discourse. Through content analysis methods, changes in communication strategies were documented to highlight the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s (NCAA) responses to recent legal challenges to the organization’s rules regulating the compensation of college athletes in the U.S. In this regard, the NCAA first emphasized the harmful effects of potential changes to the institutional script, effectively denigrating the challengers. Then the organization justified its rules and institutional logics before finally re-institutionalizing its standard discourse, which portrayed the NCAA as a progressive organization that safeguards the interests of college athletes. This study provides further insight into how dominant sport organizations formulate defensive narratives to address contestations that may threaten institutional arrangements within a given field. In this regard, this research provides further insight into the process of message framing as institutional maintenance work.