Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren promotes potential 'future expansion'

Having just welcomed USC and UCLA to the conference, Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren is already fielding questions about further expansion at media days. Warren says the entire landscape is in a “perpetual state of evaluating.”

“Where we are right now, I’m focused on being realistic about the state of college athletics,” Warren said at the Big Ten Media Days podium. “About accepting our responsibility to shape college athletics, lead and fortify, to be bold … strong, and innovative. Regarding expansion, I get asked every single day, ‘what’s next?’ It may include future expansion, but it will be done for the right reasons, at the right time, with our student-athletes’ academic and athletic empowerment at the center of any and all decisions that we make.”

“We will not expand just to expand,” Warren continued. “It will be strategic. It will add additional value to our conference and it will provide an even larger platform for our student-athletes to build their careers and have an opportunity to grow and learn.”

Warren says college athletics has outgrown the structure

Like most of the other major conference leaders in the last week, Kevin Warren used his media days podium to cast doubt on the NCAA’s ability to keep up with the changes in college sports.

“We are in a perpetual state of evaluating what’s next for college athletics,” Warren said. “I’m a big believer that the reason why we’re dealing with a lot of the issues that we’re dealing with today is that the business of college athletics has grown faster than the structure and the governance of college athletics.”

Although arguably started a year ago by the SEC’s pick-up of Oklahoma and Texas, it was the Big Ten’s stunning move that jump-started the latest realignment chaos. The commissioner’s podium statements echoed those of Greg Sankey and new Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark last week.