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Big Ten Commissioner Tony Petitti (cOck llama)

ScriptOhio

Everybody is somebody else's weirdo.



Big Ten hires Tony Petitti as commissioner: Former TV executive replaces Kevin Warren​

The Big Ten Conference announced Wednesday that it officially hired Tony Petitti as its next commissioner, as the former TV executive replaces Kevin Warren. Petitti recently served as deputy commissioner and COO of MLB after having worked in executive roles for CBS Sports and ABC Sports. Warren left the league earlier this year to become president and CEO of the Chicago Bears.

“At this important and transformational time in collegiate athletics, it is truly my great honor to be chosen by the Council of Presidents and Chancellors as the commissioner of the Big Ten Conference,” Petitti said in a statement. “I am energized to work alongside the best athletics directors, coaches, conference staff and board in the country as — together — we continue to elevate the academic and athletic experiences and resources for our 14, soon-to-be 16, world-class universities with nearly 10,000 incredible student-athletes. Thank you to the extraordinary people and places that have led me to this next challenge in my career. I am ready to get to work for the Big Ten Conference community.”

Petitti will join the Big Ten from his most recent post as president of sports and entertainment at video game holding company Activision Blizzard. He landed the position in 2020 after a lengthy stint with MLB, which began when he took the reins of MLB Network as president and chief executive officer. Pettiti oversaw the launch of the network and ran its day-to-day operations until January 2015, when he succeeded MLB commissioner Rob Manfred as the organization’s chief operating officer.

Pettiti’s career in the industry began in 1988 when he joined ABC Sports as general attorney. The 1986 Harvard Law School graduate rose through the ranks at the network before CBS Sports hired him away nine years later and named him senior vice president of business affairs and programming. In 2005, he was elevated to the position of executive vice president and served in that capacity until leaving for MLB.
 
Sorry but all I see is Pet the Titties...........I can not wait for this guy to screw up and watch the creative types go rouge.

Or better yet he does some really stupid crap and gets frisky with a female co-worker.

On a more serious note. I feel like all he can do is screw it up on many levels. The B10 is very profitable and doing quite well. He needs to figure out a way to get this football scheduling better and fix some of the other sports but the overall league is in great shape.
 
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Surprised they went with another business guy after how well Warren went over though he did make bank with the TV deal

Kevin Warren got off on the wrong foot when he tried to impose his "political agenda" of cancelling the 2020 football season without coordinating it with the other conferences; particularly the SEC, ACC, and BIG XII (who didn't cancel theirs). He was forced to back track on that and reinstate an abbreviated season. You really can't say the B1G is better off than now than when he came in like you can with Jim Delaney; however, Kevin Warren does have the B1G is a very good position (with the addition of USC/UCLA and the massive TV contracts) for continued future success.
 
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Kevin Warren got off on the wrong foot when he tried to impose his "political agenda" of cancelling the 2020 football season without coordinating it with the other conferences; particularly the SEC, ACC, and BIG XII (who didn't cancel theirs). He was forced to back track on that and reinstate an abbreviated season. You really can't say the B1G is better off than now than when he came in like you can with Jim Delaney; however, Kevin Warren does have the B1G is a very good position (with the addition of USC/UCLA and the massive TV contracts) for continued future success.
I don't think Warren had any say there. That was the president's agenda. He just fucked up the PR part of it beyond belief with refusing to keep options open and being like no it's not debatable only to turn out later it was debatable.
 
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How an unfinished TV deal led to an unexpectedly hectic first month for the new Big Ten commissioner​

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When the Big Ten officially introduced Tony Petitti as its new commissioner nearly a month ago, he listed four immediate priorities in his role as one of the most powerful people in college sports.

The league needs to integrate USC and UCLA for the 2024-25 season, explore the new media rights deal for the expanded College Football Playoff and focus on the tricky issue of name, image and likeness.

Lastly, Petitti prioritized the official completion of the massive television contract worth more than $7 billion negotiated by his predecessor, Kevin Warren. This issue may have seemed like a mere formality, but complications to the much-celebrated deal arose soon after he accepted the job.

Nearly three months before the season kicks off and those TV deals begin, the Big Ten does not have completed longform contracts, which include the fine print details. Instead, Petitti is engaged in significant "horse trading," according to multiple sources, to get the NBC primetime deal finished and figure out what the network calls "outstanding issues" in order to uphold as much value as possible.

"These deals aren't done, and they aren't what they were represented to be from the standpoint of the NBC deal and the availability of all members to participate in November games in primetime," said an industry source.

Interviews with nearly a dozen sources in and around the Big Ten and the college sports industry paint a picture of Petitti sprinting to navigate details left unresolved from his predecessor.

As a result, there's a trail of unhappy athletic directors seeing money disappearing from their bottom line, frustrated television executives and big-name coaches irked about the lack of transparency in details that weren't communicated to them.
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Recently, schools have found out:
  • They are going to have to pay back nearly $40 million to Fox because, according to sources, Warren delivered NBC the Big Ten football title game in 2026 without the full authority to do so. This all has unfolded under the complicated backdrop of the Big Ten conference not actually controlling the rights to the inventory of this latest deal -- the Big Ten Network does, which is majority owned by Fox. (More on that below.)
  • They are going to have to pay $25 million total for a deal to pay Fox back for lost 2020 football game inventory. This came after an arrangement between Fox and the conference that was unable to muster the lost revenue from the COVID-19 season.
  • There's tens of millions of dollars of value of the NBC primetime deal in flux, as Petitti has been racing to ensure it keeps as much of its original value as possible. Historically in the Big Ten, after the first weekend in November, schools were not required to play night games for myriad reasons -- health, recovery and campus logistics among them. These were known in league circles as "tolerances," and prior television contracts accounted for them.
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Still, a summary of the article is this: Kevin Warren's tenure as Big Ten commissioner was stained with incompetence. With Warren off to lead the Bears, the conference's new leadership and its 14 (soon to be 16) member schools are left to face the consequences, which blows.
 
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I don't trust guys that smile a lot. Better keep an eye on this one.
I am not sure when it started for me. But anyone who gives me a compliment makes me very suspect of their motives. So I 100% agree with this comment. Give me someone who looks slightly annoyed and aggravated and you have a leader I can follow. Well until I realize they are just constipated and then I realize you have tricked me.
 
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I am not sure when it started for me. But anyone who gives me a compliment makes me very suspect of their motives. So I 100% agree with this comment. Give me someone who looks slightly annoyed and aggravated and you have a leader I can follow. Well until I realize they are just constipated and then I realize you have tricked me.
Great post, I agree,


Or maybe I’m just full of shit.
 
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Read Script's post to see how deep the problem lies. As a new hire, one goes in and uncovers the problems that are a) unsolved; b) unknown. Then get to work to solve. Yeah, Warren was a clusterflop, and I disagree that he was held hostage by the Presidents. He should have had the moxie to sway them, and bring the perspective of these educational intellectuals around to a good business deal. The prior guy certainly would have. Not having these TV deals done - let alone that it seems that Warren bent over for the big number to me would predicate that NO bonus should be paid. Period. Hope it doesn't come down to rebidding the whole TV package out. Whoever the heck was advising Warren should be taken to the woodshed as well. Negotiating away rights that the B10 didn't have (25 championship game) is inexcusable. Soooo, Pettiti will make his bones solving these problems, and making the fallout (November night games) more palatable to the universities. From the above resume, it sounds like he has the tools for the job. But as the newbie, he's gotta get the confidence of the President's council first. And figure out a way to integrate USC and UCLA into all sports. Not a job I'd want. Anyone know why he didn't have the prior guy assist him in the negotiations?
 
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Another thought...if it was me, I would have hired Jim Delaney as a consultant to help/assist me with these negotiations. Without an intimate knowledge of the TV contract, would have been a big plus. Failing that, (which he obviously did), the President's Council (!) should have been smart enough to hire Delaney to make a final reading BEFORE they approved said TV contract. This was the PC's failing, and should have happened. Can see why Warren didn't use Delaney as a resource, as he didn't want to show weakness/inexperience to his new bosses, so maybe this will be a learning experience for PC for future "big" deals....
 
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