Big Ten Media Days: Conference commish Kevin Warren dishes on further expansion

Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren opened up media days in Indianapolis coming off a summer of transformative change. The conference added UCLA and USC on June 30 and the two Los Angeles programs will join in Aug. 2024.

“We are blessed now, especially with the addition of the University of California, Los Angeles and the University of Southern California, that we will have a footprint in the three major media markets from New York to Los Angeles to Chicago, which will allow us to be even bolder when it comes to corporate partnership and activation,” Warren said. “So I’ll look forward to building a very successful and robust business in that area.

There are no strings attached. USC and UCLA enter the Big Ten as full-fledged members. They will get the full revenue share in a massive upcoming media contract. The addition adds a Big Ten foothold in all three major media markets – L.A., Chicago and New York.

“We think that’s important for various reasons, they bring a lot of value to our relationship, they bring a lot of panache to our relationship and we look forward to welcoming them into the Big Ten family in 2024, there’s a lot of work to be done between now and then,” Warren said.

“The value of being across four time zones for multiple reasons is really important. We haven’t finalized the financial impact, and ironically this probably will shock you, the numbers and finances associated with it are typically the last things that I kind of consider and analyze. It’s important for me from a business standpoint, but from a decision-making process standpoint, always look at all the other reasons why because, if all the other reasons make sense, the finances will take care of themselves.

“So I’m looking forward to building a brand to be fortified and strong from Los Angeles to New Jersey and everywhere in between. So it will be an exciting time, a busy time for these next two years.”

What’s next for Big Ten expansion?

The Big Ten is not sitting on its hands waiting for the next move, but it also is taking a methodical approach to who it adds. Warren says that the health of the conference will be considered in adding more teams to a potential superconference.

“I get asked every single day what’s next,” he said. “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 will make regarding any further expansions.

“We will not expand just to expand. It will be strategic, it will add additional value to our conference, and it will provide a platform to even have our student-athletes be put on a larger platform so they can build their careers but also that they have an opportunity to grow and learn from an education and athletic standpoint.

“We are in a perpetual state of evaluating what’s next for college athletics, what’s next for the Big Ten Conference, what’s next for College Football Playoff, what’s next for the NCAA, what’s next for the Transformation Committee, and what’s next for the future of how we operate in this environment called college athletics. Our bowls, our partnerships.

“And I’m a big believer that the reason we are dealing with a lot of issues that we are dealing with today is because the business of college athletics has grown faster than the structure and the governance of college athletics. Media rights, we’ve been working on those. I’m incredibly pleased with where we are. We have great opportunities. We’re finalizing our deals, and I look forward to standing before you to make an announcement sometime here, sooner than later.

“So while the dollars are important to our member institutions, but it’s really about the platform to provide financial stability to our member institutions so we can provide excellent healthcare, mental health services, life skills programs, and even educational experiences to our student-athletes.”

What about the logistics?

There are logical concerns about how it will work traveling across a few timezones to play games. When asked, Warren compared it to the teams they are sending to Ireland to play a game this season.

“We have two years now to plan,” Warren said. “We have built a Big Ten kind of readiness committee that we’ll activate here to start working with USC and UCLA to get ideas as far as what we can do. We have two of our universities at Northwestern and Nebraska going to Dublin to play a football game. How many young students — forget about sports, but in college — have an opportunity to travel to Dublin?

“Because of that, I’m so proud of what Nebraska and Northwestern are doing, they’re amplifying that trip to be able to learn. So I look at it as not a negative, I look at it as a positive from an academic standpoint.

“And what we’ll do is we’ll work through these next two years from a scheduling component to make sure that we create the environment that’s most healthy and holistic for our student-athletes, which is one of the reasons I’ve started the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee to be able to listen to them to say what’s important.”

A seat at the table for playoff expansion

Warren and the Big Ten also hope to be a driving force behind College Football Playoff, which includes more media partners and other logistical issues.

“We have meetings coming up in September and October to talk about these issues. I’m 100 percent supportive of College Football Playoff expansion,” Warren said.

“What is that right number? We’ll figure it out. I’m confident we’ll get the College Football Playoff expansion resolved. I feel very strongly that we need to open it up to have multiple media partners, that we need to have from the college football standpoint. We need to take a holistic view. We need to make sure we protect some of the critical bowl relationships.

“So as we work through all these, whether it’s an automatic qualifier, whatever the case may be, I’m confident as we get these new individuals in a room, get these issues on the table, that we’ll be able to reach some resolution and again make sure we ask ourselves the right questions for the right reasons at the right time for our student-athletes and our fans, but I look forward to the day we can expand the College Football Playoff, and I’m confident that it will happen.”