Ohio State AD Gene Smith supportive of Big Ten, SEC advisory group

COLUMBUS — The Big Ten and SEC announced the formation of a joint advisory group Friday that’s made up of university presidents, chancellors and athletic directors and designed to “take a leadership role in developing solutions for a sustainable future of college sports.”

The advisory group will consult about court decisions, pending litigation, state laws and governance proposals.

Ohio State Athletic Director Gene Smith immediately voiced his support.

“I support the leadership role that the Big Ten Conference and the Southeastern Conference are undertaking with the goal of improving our student-athlete experiences and also finding solutions to the challenges facing collegiate athletics today,” Smith wrote in a statement.

“I applaud Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti and SEC commissioner Greg Sankey on their proactive partnership and leadership role that will address the issues and seek solutions within the current environment.”

Smith announced his retirement last summer. His final day as AD will be June 30, 2024. On July 1, Ross Bjork — Texas A&M’s AD since 2019 — will take over.

New university president Ted Carter hired Bjork, who was introduced as the next Ohio State AD last month. Bjork will return to Columbus in March and begin learning under Smith until he officially takes over.

“The Big Ten and the SEC have substantial investment in the NCAA and there is no question that the voices of our two conferences are integral to governance and other reform efforts,” Petitti wrote in a statement. “We recognize the similarity in our circumstances, as well as the urgency to address the common challenges we face.”

Sankey added in the same statement: “There are similar cultural and social impacts on our student-athletes, our institutions and our communities because of the new collegiate athletics environment. We do not have predetermined answers to the myriad questions facing us. We do not expect to agree on everything but enhancing interaction between our conferences will help to focus efforts on common sense solutions.”

The leagues said that the advisory group won’t have authority to act independently and instead will only be a consulting body. But this is yet another sign of the two most powerful and richest conferences in college sports aligning.

It’s worth noting that Bjork will bring SEC experience to the Big Ten and that he, like Smith, is supportive of NCAA president Charlie Baker’s December proposal for a new subdivision within Division I that would allow institutions with the highest resources to compensate athletes directly via direct NIL payments and what Baker calls an “educational trust fund.”

“We have a leader in Charlie Baker, who has at least acknowledged that, as a starting point, all the programs over $100 million budgets, we’re different,” he said.

That was long after Bjork declared: “We need to deconstruct and recreate the antiquated NCAA governance and divisional structure. At a minimum, there needs to be consolidation of the highest-resource programs around a new financial governance model.

“We either take action now, or action will continue to be taken upon us. Enough conversations, enough lobbying, enough legal battles, it’s time that we make a plan as an enterprise. And I look forward to locking arms with [Big Ten] Commissioner Tony Petitti, and Ohio State and the Big Ten can lead the way along with the rest of our national colleagues.”