NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The leaders of the two most powerful conferences in college athletics made clear Thursday they have zero interest in ceding any of that power to third parties like private equity.
In the aftermath of a historic meeting between Big Ten commissioner Tony Pettiti and SEC commissioner Greg Sankey, the two were in lock-step pushing back on the value of allowing outside entities into their world. In recent weeks, groups like “Project Rudy” and the College Student Football League have generated media attention around super league concepts.
“It’s no coincidence they ramped up their public relations schemes around our meeting,” Sankey said.
Pettiti strongly pushed back on the value of allowing those private equity-backed groups to wrest control of college football, saying that nothing about the concepts he’s seen have featured anything proprietary. The Big Ten commissioner believes everything those groups have pitched can be done by the college sports leaders themselves.
“The notion that college football is broken is just not right,” Pettiti said. “You cover our game on a weekly basis, you see the interest — speaking of the Big Ten and SEC — the size of the audience, the passion, the quality of play, all of it. Are there things that we can do better? Of course, but that’s our responsibility to do that.”
Amid tremendous change within the college sports ecosystem and only days after the House vs. NCAA lawsuit settlement was preliminarily approved, Big Ten and SEC leaders — including athletic directors — met at the Grand Hyatt hotel in downtown Nashville to sketch out how the two power conferences can help shape the future. The in-person meeting was the result of months of work after the initial formation of a joint advisory committee earlier this year.
The group discussed the College Football Playoff, the $2.8 billion House settlement, NCAA governance issues, scheduling…
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