Big Ten Football Media Days began Tuesday in Indianapolis, as representatives from all 18 programs across the conference will appear and talk with media throughout the three-day event. Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti kicked things off Tuesday by holding his own press conference, holding court on a number of different topics ahead of the start of a new athletic year in the conference.
Here are some of the key topics Petitti discussed.
Football scheduling
Petitti addressed multiple questions about different aspects of the conference football schedule this year.
The Big Ten is continuing its Friday night games that have become a talking point over the last several years, as those games make their way to FOX Sports this year. IU’s week 2 contest against Western Illinois is on a Friday, its third consecutive year with a Friday game. Former IU head coach and current Penn State defensive coordinator Tom Allen made his stance on Friday night college football games very clear.
Petitti said Tuesday that Friday nights give the conference an additional national television window to showcase its games, which can benefit programs around the conference as well as the league’s media partners. He did acknowledge that some programs prefer to only play on Saturdays, and said the conference takes coaches’ preferences into account with these schedules. Notably, three of the Big Ten’s biggest football brands — Ohio State, Michigan, and Penn State — don’t play on Friday this year, while Rutgers, Purdue, Oregon, UCLA, Washington, and Michigan State all have two Friday night games.
“If you look at it, it’s an opportunity to get programs to showcase them as they build in matchups. I think for us to have that footprint is really terrific,” Petitti said. “I think on the hurdle side, look, there are just traditional places that want to play more on Saturday. We understand and respect that. It’s a league discussion that involves all 18 about the best way to format our schedule. Where coaches are embracing opportunities to have that exposure on Friday night, we try to lean into that. That’s the way we approach it.”
Additionally, this is the first season since 2019 that the Big Ten has not held a conference game in week 1. Indiana has become very familiar with those opening-week games — IU has opened the season against Big Ten opponents every year from 2020 through 2023. The first Big Ten game this season is in week 2, when Maryland faces Michigan State; Indiana’s first conference game is in week 3 against Big Ten newcomer UCLA.
Petitti said this was just how the schedule shook out this year, as opposed to a specific thing the conference was moving away from. But he went on to suggest that the early-season conference games are not a particularly high priority.
“I think the core of what we do is that we are in the grind of conference football in November, and that’s the primary piece,” Petitti said. “I’m more concerned about that run to the end of the season than necessarily conference games the first or second week.”
House settlement
The landmark settlement in the House v. NCAA case in May is set to reshape the landscape of collegiate athletics through revenue sharing previously unheard of with amateurism.
The settlement is also expected to affect roster sizes and scholarship limits, among other things. And everything impacted by this is sure to have trickle-down effects that will bring a lot of change to college sports.
Petitti acknowledged the scope of the settlement’s impact on college sports and the athletes that comprise it, but he knows there’s a lot of work left.
“While significant strides have been made, there’s still much to do. Changes to governance models and operational rules must be debated and implemented. State and local laws that create an uneven playing field still must be addressed. Litigation and administrative proceedings that seek to classify student-athletes regardless of sport or school as employees,” Petitti said. “We continue to work with Congress and our colleagues to address these challenges, and we are optimistic that we will build on the momentum of the past year.”
Petitti later added that a lot of the things opened up by the settlement — potential direct pay to athletes, expanded NIL opportunities, and more — will require oversight from the schools and the conference, with no pre-existing infrastructure for it. That can take time to develop.
Those sorts of adjustments to the new model for college sports will also require collaboration between conferences, and Petitti said he and the various other conference commissioners are committed to that. But he also said there are a lot of decisions with these things that each university has to make on its own.
“This system is built to allow institutions to make individual decisions about what programs they want to support, how much they want to invest, what student-athletes get what, how many scholarships they offer, because we’re eliminating scholarship limits,” Petitti said. “All of those decisions will be made institution by institution, and I think that’s the right way to do it.”
Petitti and other Big Ten officials are hoping to have more things finalized with everything regarding the settlement within the net few months.
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