Big Ten’s Warren open expanding beyond 16 teams

INDIANAPOLIS — Less than a month after his conference sparked a seismic shift in college sports, Big Ten Commissioner Kevin Warren pledged to continue to be “bold” and “aggressive” in how the league navigates a rapidly changing landscape. Warren’s most significant and stunning move in that effort came in late June when he welcomed UCLA and Southern California to the conference, beginning in the 2024 season - a decision that proved financial gains trump geography in this era of realignment. And Warren didn’t discount the possibility of future expansion.

Warren, speaking publicly for the first time since the Big Ten announced its newest members, now leads a Midwest-rooted conference that extended to the East Coast with the additions of Rutgers and Maryland in 2014 and will now stretch across four time zones to Los Angeles. He wants the Big Ten to stay relevant and embrace change, and he’s now poised to have a 16-team league that can rival the mighty SEC. The other conferences, meanwhile, are left wondering what’s next as these two powers separate themselves from the rest.

“The Big Ten Conference will not languish in bureaucracy,” Warren said at the league’s media days Tuesday morning. “We will be innovative, we will be creative, we’ll be bold, we’ll be strong, we’ll be powerful, and we’ll be direct to make sure we can prioritize what’s important to our student-athletes, what’s important to our fans, what’s important to our member institutions, what’s important to our partners as we help shape and direct the future of college athletics.”

The massive market of Los Angeles is poised to make the Big Ten’s upcoming media rights deal even more lucrative than the $1 billion annual price tag the conference had been reportedly set to attract before the announcement of its newest members. Warren acknowledged Tuesday that the addition of UCLA and USC “will allow us to be even bolder when it comes to corporate partnership and activation.”

Conference leaders unveiled last year an alliance between the Big Ten, ACC and Pac-12, touting trust and a shared vision for the future of college sports. That forged bond not held together by a contract, the need for which was shrugged off by those administrators at the time came in the wake of Oklahoma and Texas announcing their intention to jump from the Big 12 to the SEC. The Big Ten quickly followed suit a year later by adding two major programs - and doing so before the conference had finished finalizing that media rights deal. Warren said the new agreement is expected to be complete soon, but he would not disclose specific figures.

The Big Ten’s future, Warren said, “may include future expansion, but it will be done for the right reasons at the right time.”

He added: “We will not expand just to expand. It will be strategic, it will add additional value to our conference, and it will provide a platform to even have our student-athletes be put on a larger platform so they can build their careers.”

UCLA and USC will join the conference as full members, Warren said. Those schools will receive a full share of revenue from the start - unlike other recent additions Maryland, Rutgers and Nebraska, which initially received only a partial share after joining the conference.

Warren lauded the value of USC and UCLA, referencing media partners and a large Big Ten alumni base in Los Angeles. With late kickoffs on the West Coast, the conference’s television programming will now last all day and into the night.