The strange and brazen story of the Big Ten’s financial escape.
Indiana State football coach Curt Cignetti greets fans at Beaver Stadium
After the Hoosiers’ dramatic road win over Penn State, IU coach Curt Cinetti exited the stadium to a line of fans waiting to celebrate.
I don’t have the time or the wherewithal to deal with the internal machinations that have run away from Big Ten finances. So let’s start with the obvious.
Is Tony Petiti trying to kill the Big Ten all by himself?
Just when you thought it couldn’t get worse than the last time, when a conference commissioner asked players to run two seasons in nine months during a global pandemic, the commissioner of the conference that ruined the Big Ten’s reputation with something called the Alliance before leaving for the NFL has decided to put his tenure as Big Ten commissioner on hold for allowing Wolf to pass.
Wolf of Private Equity.
Folks, I point out fiscal stupidity. The Big Ten is the richest and most financially secure of all conferences, and by far the most desperate to jump into bed with private equity in exchange for a piece of each school’s precious and ever-growing media rights.
And jumping into bed means selling that soul.
Because those private equity sharks were once the entire reason for its existence – how can you say that? — To make money above all else, If we were allowed one foot in the door, the Big Ten as we know it would cease to exist. One foot turns into another, and then another, and before you know it, a shark is swimming in what was once an oasis.
And for what? How to win the game?
You see, if the 16 Big Ten athletic teams that receive full media royalties can’t survive on the projected $75 million in fiscal year 2025 (which increases each year through the length of the contract through 2030), then more than 100 FBS schools are eager to take on the challenge. That includes Oregon State and Washington State, recent Big Ten additions that have been phased in financially through the media rights agreement process.
I mean, what’s going on in the Ten Years’ War?
Herein lies the problem with Mr. Petiti’s ending. He’s trying to do so in the midst of one of the most dramatic changes in the history of college sports, capitalizing on both the distraction from an ever-evolving framework and the desperation of member schools that don’t yet know how to confront this unruly beast.
If you think about it, that’s quite a manipulation.
These universities, which had to deal with former commissioner Kevin Warren convincing their presidents that the SEC was the boogeyman and were here for the money, which is why they had to destroy the Pac-12 and a completely imperfect college football framework by proxy, now have a commissioner who continues to make inexplicable moves that are not in the interest of the legendary conference.
Want more money? Expand the playoffs to 16 teams and earn more media rights fees from television partners, as the SEC and other FBS conferences want.
Want more money? I look at the millions of dollars given to Oregon and Washington. They were added to the league because some idiot decided to take USC and UCLA without thinking twice. And they realized that two schools, often three time zones away from the conference venue, needed a travel partner.
In the words of my best Deshaun Foster, “We’re, uh, in Los Angeles.”
Los Angeles.
The best part of Petiti’s shell game is that it took USC and Michigan, the only rational-thinking members of an ascetic and boring conference, to sharpen the gears and slow the move to run the conference off a fiscal cliff.
The Big Ten calls the proposed $2.4 billion deal with the Devils a “plan.” Because this plan has been analyzed and scrutinized, and it sounds like a reasonable structure. It sounds like someone wins and someone loses, not an agreement.
As simply as possible, and again without getting into all the weeds, let me explain who is winning and who is losing. If each university’s board of governors tries to pass this agreement without understanding the details, they could find themselves in a bind.
The fact that some schools are using their presidents and athletic directors to approve this agreement is grossly reckless. University presidents are hired to raise funds, and athletic directors are hired to spend the funds.
Oh my god, this can’t be real.
The Big Ten reported $928 million in revenue last year, and USA TODAY Sports predicts that revenue will jump to $1.2 billion to $1.4 billion in 2025. 1 billion, with B.
The Big Ten doesn’t have a revenue problem, it has a budget problem.
And then there’s Mr. Petiti, who has branched out to private equity sharks whose sole purpose in life is to make deals that benefit them. They’re not just giving you $2.4 billion out of good intentions.
And they’re not doing it without influence, intentional or not. They do this because they are catching big fish that are hungry and need to be fed.
No matter how many souls it takes.
Matt Hayes is a senior national college football writer for USA TODAY Sports Network. Follow him on X @MattHayesCFB.
