The Big Ten's Empire Runs into Resistance
Mon Feb 02 2026
The Big Ten’s commissioner, Tony Petitti, spent much of this season trying to do two things: 1) Expand the Playoff to his liking, and 2) Get his member schools to sign a big private capital deal. Neither happened, and the conference now appears to have wasted a lot of time off the field even as it was winning a third-straight national championship on it. Matt Brown of the tremendous Extra Points newsletter and document library joins Alex and Richard to talk about these misadventures, in particular:
* How Petitti has made himself the sport’s main bureaucratic villain, taking a role that SEC commissioner Greg Sankey may have seen as his birthright
* Why a lot of the Big Ten wanted this private capital deal
* Why it didn’t ultimately come together, despite those wishes
* The one actual good reason for wanting the deal, explained by Matt
* Why Rutgers’ finances are so bad
You can read Matt several times every week by subscribing to his Extra Points newsletter. We are both happy subscribers, along with most conference commissioners, countless athletic directors, and anyone else who cares about being informed on the off-field movements shaping college football.
SZD paying subscribers will hear a lot more from Matt later this week
He’ll join us on a subscriber episode to discuss Playoff non-expansion, the state of the football calendar, the NCAA’s stalled (?) efforts to get an antitrust exemption from Congress, the eligibility crisis in multiple sports, the race to fund excess NIL money on top of the House settlement, and the topic that’s always on all of our minds: basketball video game licensing.
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.splitzoneduo.com/subscribe
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The Big Ten’s commissioner, Tony Petitti, spent much of this season trying to do two things: 1) Expand the Playoff to his liking, and 2) Get his member schools to sign a big private capital deal. Neither happened, and the conference now appears to have wasted a lot of time off the field even as it was winning a third-straight national championship on it. Matt Brown of the tremendous Extra Points newsletter and document library joins Alex and Richard to talk about these misadventures, in particular: * How Petitti has made himself the sport’s main bureaucratic villain, taking a role that SEC commissioner Greg Sankey may have seen as his birthright * Why a lot of the Big Ten wanted this private capital deal * Why it didn’t ultimately come together, despite those wishes * The one actual good reason for wanting the deal, explained by Matt * Why Rutgers’ finances are so bad You can read Matt several times every week by subscribing to his Extra Points newsletter. We are both happy subscribers, along with most conference commissioners, countless athletic directors, and anyone else who cares about being informed on the off-field movements shaping college football. SZD paying subscribers will hear a lot more from Matt later this week He’ll join us on a subscriber episode to discuss Playoff non-expansion, the state of the football calendar, the NCAA’s stalled (?) efforts to get an antitrust exemption from Congress, the eligibility crisis in multiple sports, the race to fund excess NIL money on top of the House settlement, and the topic that’s always on all of our minds: basketball video game licensing. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.splitzoneduo.com/subscribe