New Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti's mission: Collaborate, innovate in time of change

ROSEMONT, Ill. — When Tony Petitti took the podium to be introduced as the Big Ten’s new commissioner Friday, he quickly flashed back to a time before he became a significant mover and shaker in the world of sports and broadcasting.

He and two other friends decided to go to the 1988 Rose Bowl. There, Petitti saw the Big Ten’s present at the time, Michigan State, emerge victorious.

While having no idea that both he and Southern Cal would be joining them 35 years later.

“I was not working in college sports or sports at all,” the Queens native recalled in his subtle New York City accent. “But I love college football, and I had always wanted to go to the game. It was a great game. Michigan State led by Lorenzo White and Bobby McAllister beat a Rodney Peete-led USC team with more than 100,000 fans in attendance.

“It was better than I imagined it would be.”

Now, Petitti takes over one of the most demanding and visible jobs in all of college sports, at a moment when the fabric of what it once was in 1988 before he embarked on a winding career that took him from TV sports executive to the Major League Baseball front office to replacing Kevin Warren as the Big Ten’s seventh commissioner.

“I understand that I begin my role as commissioner at a time in college athletics marred by both incredible opportunity and historic change," Petitti said. "And I'm fortunate to guide a conference that not only has remarkable traditions, but has the current strength, unity and willingness to collaborate to effectively meet the challenges ahead.”

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Petitti officially takes over as commissioner May 15 — Warren already has left the league and is the new president of the Chicago Bears — and inherits a Big Ten about to begin a new media rights deal, and on the verge of adding USC and UCLA in a year. Those are the positives.

The challenges are many, ranging from the future of the College Football Playoff to potential realignment into superconferences to the amorphous atmosphere of name, image and likeness and boosterism. But most of all: What is the purpose of college sports in 2023 and beyond?

Here are five takeaways from Petitti’s introduction to the 14 (soon to be 16) schools of the Big Ten and their fans.

1. Modern background

The son of a former New York City police officer, who reminisced about playing stickball with his dad on the streets of Queens, Petitti played baseball at Division III Haverford College near Philadelphia. He was a catcher and co-captain there before graduating in 1983 and going on to Harvard Law School, graduating there in 1986.

A few months after watching the Spartans beat the Trojans, Petitti joined ABC Sports as a general attorney. He told his alma mater’s website in 2005, “I saw it as an opportunity to work at something I loved. I knew I didn't feel that way about law.”

It was a quick rise at ABC, where Petitti became director and vice president of programming and handled acquiring and scheduling sports broadcasts, including working hand-in-hand with many of the legendary conference commissioners to shape college football telecasts. He was hired away by CBS in 1997 and handled the network’s NCAA men's basketball tournament programming as well as the Super Bowl and NFL broadcasts, the PGA and the Masters and the U.S. Open Tennis Championships. He would serve as vice president of CBS Sports from 2002-08.

Petitti left CBS to help start MLB Network and served as its president and CEO from 2008-14 before joining Major League Baseball’s front office as deputy commissioner and chief operating officer from 2014-20. He most recently served as an advisor for Liberty Media and The Baupost Group evaluating sports and media properties, helping to launch an NFL digital content company, The 33rd Team as co-chief executive officer.

“It is clear that Tony is exactly the right person at the right time for the Big Ten Conference,” Illinois Chandellor Robert J. Jones said. “And we were looking for a strong and collaborative individual who could really step into this role already on the run.”

2. College football visionary

Petitti while at ABC helped perhaps the most seismic shift in college sports in its history: the creation of the Bowl Championship Series in 1997. He worked to negotiate with then-Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany and then-Southeastern Conference leader Roy Kramer to bring those two into the Bowl Alliance and the Rose Bowl together to get college football’s first attempt at an on-field national championship.

What is now the Football Bowl Subdivision, previously Division I-A, used the BCS format from 1998-2014 before morphing into the four-team College Football Playoff. Both MSU in 2015 and Michigan the past two seasons earned spots in the CFP semifinal.

Petitti arrived for his introductory news conference after attending the CFP spring meetings in Irving, Texas. The playoff expands from four to 12 teams in the 2024 season, and the first 12-team scheduling model – a number Petitti said he likes – was released Thursday when the meetings adjourned.

“There's just a tremendous amount of excitement about the expansion and what it's going to mean for the sport,” Petitti said. “I think the the one thing about the BCS that was really great, and I think that'll continue with the expanded playoff, is just the ability to make the regular season still very important and build that excitement. So it's not like you want to think about it as two halves, postseason and regular season, it really is one connected half. And the goal of a great postseason is to make the regular season better.

“I feel really confident that the number that that's been chosen will do exactly that.”

3. Making a name

While Warren’s tenure was shaped and defined by his handling of the pandemic, initially shutting down football in 2020 before restarting with a compacted schedule, he also had to navigate perhaps the biggest change to college sports since the inception of the BCS.

Players getting paid, legally.

“It's clear they have the right to monetize their name, image and likeness. And I think that's a good thing,” Petitti said. “I think that going forward, it's more about what's that system going to be.”

State legislatures around the country and Congress forced colleges to allow athletes to be able to capitalize on endorsement deals and other outside financial opportunities. That rapidly developed into boosters and groups forming NIL collectives to give players money that colleges are technically supposed to have nothing to do with.

Petitti said he already heard a lot in his initial meetings with Big Ten presidents and chancellors, athletic directors and senior women’s administrators about the need for better transparency with what is and isn’t allowable.

“College athletics is one national ecosystem. The Big Ten competes across multiple states, we compete nationally for championships. I think that system deserves a national solution and national system,” he said. “That's why the collaboration is so important. That's why federal legislation is a lot about what you've been reading about over the last few months, because it's the best solution. State by state doesn't seem to make sense for a system that competes the way we do.”

4. Shifting priorities

Along with the influx of money being funneled now legally to athletes – from NIL opportunities, with schools providing stipends and certain health benefits, with athletes now having opportunity to transfer with immediate eligibility – college sports increasingly are taking on a more professional look. Jones from Illinois said the Big Ten attempting to grasp that change began under under Warren’s watch as “we really started to rethink the entire amateur athletic model.”

Petitti balked at whether he felt colleges should adopt more of athletes-as-employees shift.

“I think there's obviously a lot of differing opinions in which way we'll go,” he said. “I think No. 1, it’s going to take great collaboration among all the conferences and the NCAA to accomplish that. I don’t think one conference – while we can lead – I think its going to take everybody working together to come up with the right solution. …

“I think that’s already underway and happening. You can embrace all of that change without having to really change the actual model. I think that's the sweet spot of what we're trying to do, recognize what student-athletes need going forward but also preserving the core of what these institutions think their mission is.”

5. More additions to come?

Warren’s biggest accomplishments are finalizing a new television contract that goes into effect this fall and adding two new members next summer, as well as aiding in the growth of the CFP.

That’s the handoff Petitti gets.

“It's really important to integrate USC and UCLA properly,” Petitti said. “So while they are going to be members, there's a ton of work that has to be done to make sure that we organize it properly, that student-athletes when they enter, the the schedules make sense. All of those things are really important.”

And there also is that elephant in the room that every fan wants to know: Will the Big Ten grow beyond 16 teams into an 18- or 20-team superconference? Maybe more?

Petitti couldn’t – or wouldn’t – say.

“I think as commissioner of the Big Ten, my job is to make sure the conference is as strong in the present and future as it's always been,” he said. “I'll just sort of leave it at that.”

Contact Chris Solari: csolari@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @chrissolari. Read more on the Michigan State Spartans and sign up for our Spartans newsletter.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: New Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti's mission: Collaborate, innovate