Big Ten Commissioner Kevin Warren Examines Addition of USC, UCLA to Conference
Big Ten Commissioner Kevin Warren addressed the media from the podium at Big Ten Media Days Tuesday morning.
After making remarks about a variety of topics around the conference, the vast majority of Warren's podium time was spent discussing the addition of UCLA and USC to the Big Ten in 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."
Here's everything the commissioner said about UCLA and USC's move to the Big Ten.
On Maintaining Conference Integrity
"Now that we have schools in 2024 that will reach from New York, New Jersey, to Los Angeles, what are the different cultural elements in each one of those environments, not only in the cities, but with their alumni, that we could even fortify our educational relationship with our student-athletes.
"We have built a Big Ten 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'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."
On A New Media Rights Deal
"We're still working through [the media rights deal target value]. I don't want to guess what that would be. I know we'll reach that decision here pretty quickly.
"Regardless of the size of the deal, the thing that I'm most excited about during these negotiations have been the creativity that we'll be able to deliver to our fans and to our student-athletes and to our families. When you think an opportunity to be able to deliver content, then I always talk about my focus every day is to make sure we deliver content to our fans from age 5 to 105 because people consume content differently.
"We have nearly 7 million alumni around the world. So I'm very conscientious from the media partners standpoint, not to focus on the money, although we will be blessed financially, but how we can deliver content in a way that's never been delivered in college athletics ever before, which is critically important from that standpoint."
On Conference Revenue Distribution
"USC and UCLA will come in as full members. We think that's important for various reasons. They bring a lot of value to our relationship and we look forward to welcoming them into the Big Ten family here in 2024.
"There's a lot of work to be done between now and then."
On How Talks About USC and UCLA Joining The Conference Developed
"But the decision-making process, even before I accepted the job, even in my materials I prepared to accept the job, expansion was in there. And I think we had to be forward thinking as far as what we needed to do.
"What do I think it brings even more to the table than athletics? Athletics is a big component of it, but academics is incredibly important. You look at some of the alumni from USC, the Steven Spielbergs, at UCLA Jackie Robinson, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Stan Smith from USC. You think of all the diverse, powerful alumni who have a diverse background, academically, athletically. The graduation rates of each one of those two schools is over 92 percent.
"One of the things that caught my eye when I was interviewing for this job back in 2019, I studied every one of the universities across the country. One of the things that jumped out about USC, UCLA, and even the market of Los Angeles, we have -- they're the largest section of Big Ten alumni, other than in the Midwest, is in Los Angeles. And there's so many opportunities that exist across the country.
"I've spent a lot of time even before I came to the Big Ten, once I accepted the job in the Big Ten, and even these last couple years, always analyzing each and every school and what it means just for college athletics, what it means for the Big Ten Conference, and to make sure that any time we have an opportunity to add incredible value, that we are prepared.
"A lot of work that we've done on any expansion, potential expansion we've done, we've done it multiple years ago, and we're always in a perpetual state of analyzing the goodness of fit for any institutions that would come into the Big Ten Conference."
On Playing Across Four Time Zones
"So I think 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 thing 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.
"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, busy time for these next two years. Thank you for all the work that you do."
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