Big Ten's Tony Petitti on pay-for-play: 'We're just in the middle of it'

This is the only season Tony Petitti will experience with a 14-member Big Ten Conference.

The first-year commissioner has not had much downtime since taking the job in May. While trying to form relationships with fellow college sports leaders, he’s had to lead the league through another wave of conference realignment. In 2024, the Big Ten will add four Pac-12 institutions: USC, UCLA, Oregon and Washington.

Figuring out schedules will dominate much time in the conference office over the next few months. But as one of the sport’s most powerful commissioners, he will have a notable role in crafting what NIL looks like moving forward.

In an exclusive wide-ranging interview with On3 at Big Ten Media Days, Petitti shared his thoughts on whether Congress can be the vehicle for an NIL mandate. He also voiced his concerns with The Collective Association’s revenue-sharing model, which would call for collectives to disperse TV payouts to athletes. The former MLB executive cited Title IX as a significant hurdle.

“I don’t think that we’re in a position now to support the idea that outside third parties are entering into relationships outside the system if we’re going to take revenue that is being generated by the conference and its members,” he said. “If the belief is student-athletes need more benefits, and I think that’s something that’s likely that we have to figure out how we can do more for student-athletes, but that should come within the system.”

Petitti is also against the narrative that it’s Congress or the NCAA to reset the NIL market. A believer in what he calls “true NIL,” the commissioner believes the two parties must work together. Since starting the job, he has been constantly asked to tackle pay-for-play.

“Pay for play, an inducement, and it’s moving outside the system, so it’s just complete unmanaged change,” he said.

(The interview has been lightly edited for clarity and context.)

Q: There have been stakeholder meetings over at the NCAA offices, trying to figure out what the best path forward is with the hand that’s been dealt with comes to NIL. You mentioned it in your speech, but do you believe that the path forward for college athletics when it comes to reforming NIL is through Congress? Or would you like to see the NCAA try to exhaust its NIL enforcement?

Petitti: “I don’t think it’s an either-or proposition. I think support from Congress is really important. I know the NCAA, commissioners of other conferences are all putting a lot of effort individually and collectively, in those efforts to be supportive. You saw the statement that we put out around the [Cory] Booker and [Richard] Blumenthal bill and [Joe] Manchin and [Tommy] Tuberville bills. All great, in terms of just trying to create energy and figuring out what’s next there and providing support. But at the same time, I believe that we also have to do the work together to see if something doesn’t come to be, what’s the next thing that we’re doing? You have to make the adjustments that are needed to have a fair system. You have to do both.”

Q: You weren’t in college athletics when NIL started and I’m sure you paid attention to it. Obviously, it really shook up the system that is college athletics. Do you have frustration that the NCAA didn’t set itself up to be successful in this era?

Petitti: “I can’t speak to the NCAA’s decision-making before I got here. What I can say is I just listened to our athletic directors, the presidents and chancellors, coaches and everybody feels, if you want to use the word frustration, they’re just trying to understand what what we’re doing here. How we’re trying to get things to get back to the academic model to have some civility to understand how benefits flow and get control and have control of what’s going on. That does not mean that people are looking to roll back benefits to student-athletes.

“I tried to make a distinction. True NIL is a good thing like everybody’s past what that is. I didn’t mention this morning, but there could be some guardrails. I think you do need, the idea of having agents registered is an important thing. It provides protection for student-athletes and is something that’s important. But I don’t think you’re doing that with the intention of tampering down deals, you’re doing that to make sure those deals are real. That student-athletes are getting the right share of those things. But for pure NIL, true NIL, that’s a great thing, and we should celebrate that. I think everybody knows that what’s going on now is just very different than that. You combine that with the changes in the transfer portal and NIL came together at the same time, and they created something that I don’t think was intended.”

Q: Inducements are really the thing that keeps these coaches up at night, right? It’s not Marvin Harrison Jr. who is going to sign the three or four, endorsement deals. Are you still hearing a lot from these coaches and athletic directors that pay-to-play is still extremely prevalent?

Petitti: “I think we’re just in the middle of it. I mean, it is prevalent. We are in the middle of this change. This idea that money is moving in ways that have always been a violation of NCAA rules. Pay-for-play, an inducement, and it’s moving outside the system, so it’s just completely unmanaged change.”

Q: Do you feel like the NCAA has a plan to combat this?

Petitti: “I mean, I think people sometimes separate the NCAA and the work that Congress needs to do, I think it’s kind of together. There are just discussions about what we need to do to come together with or without Congressional support. Because we also have to be clear on what we’re asking for and what we’re supporting when we have these various bills. You’ve seen them, they all do slightly different things. And we need to kind of come together to talk about the things that we think are important and the things that we are supportive of.”

Q: You made a trip to Washington, D.C., recently. What were your takeaways from your time on Capitol Hill?

Petitti: “You can’t help but at least have some optimism because we were interacting with the members of the House and Senate that we were fortunate enough to spend time with. The staff is really engaged and done a lot of the work. They’re asking good questions. You feel that there are a lot of people who have a lot of things on their plate, but they’re giving you meaningful time on this. In my world, I believe that when people do that they’re looking to get something done. We’ve got to be clear on what we think that is, and what we’re willing to compromise on.”

Q: What’s it been like trying to get to know the other commissioners? And let’s be honest here, it’s definitely not all NIL-focused.

Petitti: “We come together on lots of different topics, in different forums and different issues and topics and collaboration across many different things. And I will say, look, it’s kind of progressed. For me, the first couple weeks were, ‘Hello, this is who I am, look forward to working with you.’ And like the basics. Now it’s progressed to we’re having meaningful discussions, and the pace of those discussions has picked me up. That doesn’t have to do with me being new. I think that’s just all of us understanding that we need to do that to address a lot of the different issues that college athletics faces. So that part’s been great. And I think people – there’s a competitive aspect of all that. But at the same time, if some of these issues we face the are same, we need to work together to solve them.”

Q: The NCAA is this governing body that has to be mindful of these 65 programs that are just as powerful as any other professional league in the country. Then at the same time, trying to remain mindful of Division II and Division III, which none of the teams here this week could be compared to that. Do you think that college football needs to branch off on its own? Or do you think that the NCAA is the correct body to govern college football?

Petitti: “There’s a lot in that question. So what I would say is that it’s not just college football, in terms of governance, right? Because the NCAA is governing all the sports that we have. So I think what I will say is that we’re really supportive of what Charlie Baker is trying to do both in Washington and addressing issues about how we make decisions going forward. What I will say is that there is a need to be able to make decisions with groups that do what you do, how that takes shape over the next year or so, is what we were talking about yesterday.

“And I think he’s talking about that with us because that’s critical to be able to talk with groups that are in the same situation you’re in. So when you’re facing decisions, you have that commonality doesn’t mean you always agree. But at least you’ve got a situation where you’re all facing similar outcomes, similar challenges, similar opportunities. So that’s the priority for me and believing that getting moving in that direction will be a positive.

Q: With the new TV contract, there going to be a lot more revenue shared amongst schools. There’s a belief that athletes deserve a portion of that revenue. There is a model that has come out from The Collective Association where the athletes don’t have to be employees, but they would receive some revenue, would you support that?

Petitti: “I don’t think that we’re in a position now to support the idea that outside third parties are entering into relationships outside the system if we’re going to take revenue that is being generated by the conference and its members. If the belief is that student-athletes need more benefits, and I think that’s something that’s likely that we have to figure out how we can do more for student-athletes, but that should come within the system. I don’t understand why that would be driven through a third-party collective. Secondly, I don’t understand what it would mean for Title IX. And the last piece, is I don’t understand the tax implications of it. So it sounds like OK, let the collectives pay. But OK, so the first thing they did was, say, ‘Let’s take the money that the conference is generating and run it through this third party.’

“I have to spend more time like sort of talking through it. But internally, it’s just not something that seems on its face to be a direction that I think the leadership of the Big 10 would support.”