How Big Ten’s massive media deal is part of commissioner's plan to revamp conference

In the 2½ years since he became commissioner of the Big Ten Conference, Kevin Warren has navigated a global pandemic, the advent of moneymaking opportunities for college athletes, the addition of two powerhouse schools and, as of last week, the negotiation of the richest media deal in college sports history. Somehow, his biggest challenges are still ahead of him.

By adding USC and UCLA to the conference beginning in 2024 and securing a broadcast rights contract reportedly worth $7.7 billion over the rest of this decade, Warren has not only cemented the Big Ten's place as a centerpiece of college sports for the next generation, but also solidified his position as one of the most influential figures in the business.

The 58-year-old former NFL executive wields this newfound power at a time when the NCAA's authority over intercollegiate athletics is crumbling and conferences are gaining control over a system that looks more like professional sports. Athletes seize commercial deals and transfer schools at will, while universities flock to conferences that have unprecedented clout that will help schools maximize revenue and exposure.

With billions of dollars and the well-being of thousands of athletes at stake, Warren's next moves will not only reshape the Rosemont, Illinois-based Big Ten, but also the structure of college sports overall—how big-time college football and other sports are governed, where and how they are seen by fans, which schools get the most money and how athletes are compensated. His moves also will be closely watched by various constituencies with financial and emotional investments in college football—from players, coaches and athletic directors to students, alumni, wealthy donors, the press and media executives.

Warren has "unprecedented levels of opportunity and scrutiny to manage through," said John Brody, a longtime sports executive with the NFL, Major League Baseball and World Wrestling Entertainment, who is now chief revenue officer for college sports marketing giant Learfield. "It's not simply the content distribution deals, or conference realignment. It's not just (athletes getting paid) or the (player) transfer portal. Kevin has to balance all of those things."

Warren, who had no experience in college sports administration before taking the Big Ten reins, faces that balancing act as the foundation of college athletics shifts. Unlike his predecessor, Jim Delany, who added four schools to the Big Ten and ushered in an era of broadcast megadeals during a 31-year run, Warren is running the conference at a time when athletes are getting their first opportunities to cash in on their celebrity. Athletes can make money from their names, images and likenesses—under so-called "NIL" deals—with little oversight. Warren publicly backed the concept and said he's exploring ways to share the conference's new media rights windfall directly with athletes—a sharp break from the attitude of past NCAA officials.

Meanwhile, the Big Ten and the Southeastern Conference are quickly emerging as the largest, most dominant and wealthiest college football leagues, with a widening financial lead over other conferences. The consolidation of blue-blood sports schools like Texas, Oklahoma, USC and UCLA into the conferences—fueled by the hunt for eye-popping media rights contracts like the one the Big Ten just signed—puts Warren and SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey in position to effectively run their own major league businesses apart from the NCAA, complete with outsized decision-making power over issues like athlete compensation, championship formats and the prospect of players unionizing.

"In a time of disruption, it really is a time of opportunity," Warren told The Wall Street Journal this month. A Big Ten spokesman did not make Warren available for an interview for this story.

Warren "is dealing with college athletics as what they are, and not like what they should be," said B. David Ridpath, a professor of sports business at Ohio University and the former assistant athletic director at Marshall University.

While NCAA officials, athletic directors and conference commissioners have spent decades clinging to the notion that college athletes are amateurs who shouldn't be paid beyond the value of their scholarships, "this is a major league, big business sports property, and Kevin Warren recognizes that," Ridpath said.

The Big Ten's finances show the scale of that business even before the newly minted media deal with Fox, CBS and NBC kicks in. The conference, a nonprofit organization, booked nearly $769 million in revenue for the twelve months ended in June 2020, its most recent annual tax filing shows. That’s 71% more than it pulled in five years earlier, Big Ten tax records show.

Revenue will jump again when the new media deal starts generating an estimated $1.1 billion annually. Some perspective: The national broadcast rights deals inked last year by the National Hockey League reportedly bring in just more than half of that amount each year.

Media money is distributed to member schools on an equal basis, to be used as they see fit. Historically, universities have spent funds from broadcast rights to boost their athletic departments, on things like new facilities, staff and scholarships. But if Warren helps build a new framework of college athletics in which the Big Ten makes its own rules apart from the NCAA, it could change how schools spend that money.

If athletes are treated as employees, with the ability to unionize and be paid directly for their work—something Warren has said he is exploring—that might change how athletic department boosters and other big donors contribute. Warren will have to meet the financial expectations of Big Ten university presidents—his bosses, effectively—while also addressing growing calls to give athletes more of the money generated by big-time college football. Ohio State star quarterback C.J. Stroud, a favorite to win the Heisman Trophy for the football season starting this week, said he wants a cut of the Big Ten's media rights windfall.

If the Big Ten adds even more schools, as Warren has hinted it may to pull in even more money from media rights, the commissioner will also have to manage a far larger business with more, geographically disparate voices, and schools that may feel they pull more weight than others. Perennial powers Ohio State and Michigan, for example, may not want to share the growing revenue pie equally with traditional also-rans like Northwestern and Rutgers.

Fortifying the Big Ten as a super conference also risks alienating fans of schools that aren't in it, said Drew Russell, executive VP at Chicago-based media and marketing firm Intersport. A relatively small number of schools have realistic shots at winning football national championships each year; changes that make it even harder for long-shot schools to compete could diminish the audience, eroding the value that makes college football so attractive to sponsors and media rights partners, Russell said.

"It hasn't hurt them yet, but there's going to come a time when people don't want to see Ohio State, Alabama, Georgia, Oklahoma and Clemson year after year after year. That's going to be the bigger issue that needs to be faced here," Russell said.

Expanding the conference based on football audiences could also impact the experience of athletes in non-revenue sports. Flying field hockey teams across three time zones several times per season may require more school resources and be especially taxing on athletes.

"The financial opportunities going forward are going to be amazing, but it's not in the best interest of the holistic experience of college sports," said Brad Bates, a former athletic director at Boston College University and Miami University in Ohio, who now works as a consultant for athletic departments.

"There's this incredible tension between the commercial and the educational view of college sports," Bates said. "How (Warren) and Greg (Sankey) and the other power brokers move forward trying to be noble yet protecting their own self-interests as a conference will be interesting."