Ohio State Football: Big Ten has a new commissioner

Ohio State football fans were outraged at Big Ten Commissioner Kevin Warren during the 2020 season after he initially ruled to cancel the season. It was a year in which the Buckeyes had all the tools needed to win a national championship. Canceling the season would have ruined that.

Eventually, Warren did reverse course and the Buckeyes ended up making the National Championship Game. That is still the lasting memory of Warren’s tenure as commissioner of the conference for many Ohio State football fans despite some successes he’s had.

Warren did oversee bringing USC and UCLA into the conference and helped negotiate a $1 billion tv deal that is set to go into effect this Fall. His tenure wasn’t all bad. Now, he heads off to be the president of the Chicago Bears. We now know who the new commissioner of the Big Ten will be.

It is Tony Petitti, a former MLB and TV executive. He is the former COO of MLB and has also worked for ABC Sports, CBS, and the MLB Network. He helped create the BCS back when he was with ABC and helped with the NCAA Tournament while with CBS.

I know next to nothing about the candidacy of Petitti. I know that he’s not a former athletic director, which is who I would’ve thought would have gotten the job. Some had speculated that Gene Smith might put his hat in the ring for this job. He clearly did not.

I hope Petitti is someone who can help the Big Ten continue to be a leader in college sports. I’m sure he learned from Warren’s mistake in 2020 and won’t do something similar. I’m interested to see how he handles the rise of NIL and the fact that the NCAA is losing power.