Big Ten’s New Swagger Is Reshaping the Future of College Sports

RANCHO PALOS VERDES, Calif. — The Big Ten is flexing, subtly but perceptively.

The College Football Playoff trophy sits front and center on a pedestal bearing the Indiana logo at the league’s annual spring meetings. It is flanked by two wooden NCAA championship trophies, one for UCLA’s women’s basketball title and another for Michigan’s men’s basketball—both of which ended a quarter-century’s worth of frustration for the conference on the hard court just over six weeks ago. If they wanted to, they could have expanded the display with a half-dozen other awards in numerous other sports.

As it stands, this is plenty. Shuffling between meetings to go over the mundane (NCAA regulations), the pressing (issues around the College Sports Commission) and the most newsworthy (CFP expansion), there is a constant reminder of the bar for success.

It’s good to be king, and now it’s even better to let everybody know about it. In sharp contrast to past years, the Big Ten is finally doing so—puffing the conference’s chest out as humbly as its Midwestern roots will allow.

The Indiana football team celebrates after winning the national championship. | Erick W. Rasco/Sports Illustrated

“I’m really proud. Name a better brand? I mean, Indiana, Michigan, us, TV revenue, parity, 13 teams in the NCAA tournament for women’s basketball. I just think it is the brand,” Bruins women’s basketball coach Cori Close says. “It is the trendsetting, leading brand of excellence. That’s what I want to be a part of.”

There’s a swagger, a confidence and an upbeat mood around the Big Ten. The power players appear much more comfortable with their place in the broader college athletics landscape. Not only do they have a say in where the enterprise is going, they are able to dictate the direction of travel and the timeline.

It shows.

For the first time in memory, the league office invited the media to this annual meeting. Commissioner Tony Petitti—closer to a recluse than a national spokesman since he took office—doesn’t flee from the sight of reporters anymore, but is rather at ease smiling and shaking hands.

The positivity is noteworthy, but it remains to be seen if the conference can channel the good vibes—and seat at the head of the table—into actual productivity on the handful of issues that it is debating this week.

“Solving problems?” joked one tired administrator. “We’re just learning about the new ones.”

That much was clear on Monday following more than eight hours of meetings with only incremental progress. As the sun began to set, some were still inquisitive over a revamped football calendar and the implementation of forthcoming changes to NCAA eligibility that will have a wide-ranging impact on their rosters. Basketball coaches pondered NCAA tournament expansion’s practical impact on next season. Athletic directors filled any silence with talk about more revenue generation.

UCLA women's players pose with the championship trophy — UCLA won its first NCAA Division I women’s basketball title this year. | Jordan Naholowaa Murph/Sports Illustrated

“I’ve been in this league a long time,” Iowa football coach Kirk Ferentz, the dean of Big Ten coaches, says with a smile. “We’re just trying to figure out what it’s all going to look like in a few years.”

That’s a $1 billion question. The rest of college sports would surely like to know what they come up with.

Whatever it winds up being figures to be divisive for some outsiders either way. The Big Ten stands at loggerheads with the SEC on how big the playoff should be and has been far more antagonistic with the CSC over NIL payments for athletes. It recently saw a notable change surrounding tampering pass within the NCAA governance apparatus, but wants much more reform that caters to a membership which has less and less in common with some of their Power 4 peers as the conference grows richer and more powerful.

Now those in the Big Ten are speaking louder about what they want and doing so in front of a pretty big trophy case that carries weight they never had.

“It’s a hell of a league. I mean, it’s been the best performing league in college football for the last several years now,” says USC football coach Lincoln Riley. “The league is really good and that carries a lot of power right now.”

That such tangible power is also being wielded proactively comes in sharp contrast to the modus operandi of the past.

Michigan Wolverines men's basketball team — The Michigan men’s team capped off a Big Ten sweep of the Division I basketball titles in April. | Erick W. Rasco / Sports Illustrated

The Big Ten is throwing open the doors to one of their annual retreats to more than just the usual assortment of television executives, knowing it can help set the agenda and drive the national conversation ahead of the typically buzzy set of festivities the SEC holds in Destin, Fla., right after Memorial Day.

“We all have individual conversations, though I think there’s a lot of alignment there. But they’re in one league, we’re in another. You’ve got to be careful, you know, legally with what that looks like,” Ohio State athletic director Ross Bjork says. “I think the market forces in our two leagues have led us to where we are—where we see things the same way.”

That apparently does not include the size of the playoff—a topic which threatens to soak up oxygen until a December deadline—but is increasingly a possibility on issues such as federal legislation and how to get a grip on spiraling expenses at all of their schools.

While there tends to be much external doom and gloom about the state of college sports, the Big Ten finds itself with a far different outlook. That’s not just the result of plenty of warm California sunshine this week, but has much more to do with the hardware the league walks past constantly.

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