INDIANAPOLIS — Kevin Warren insists his confidence has always been there, never shaken but often stirred by the challenges and obstacles he faced during a bumpy transition as Big Ten commissioner.
From an end zone suite at Lucas Oil Stadium, he looked out toward the field late Tuesday afternoon, as the first day of the Big Ten’s football media kickoff wrapped up. It had been a good forward-facing day for the Big Ten and, perhaps more important, for Warren. At last.
This week, the league continued to celebrate the stunning and significant additions of USC and UCLA, which added Los Angeles to its coast-to-coast footprint. A major media rights agreement is on the horizon, likely to be announced by mid-August, with Warren telling ESPN, “I want people 20 years from now to look back and go, ‘Wow. They were ahead of the curve on that deal.'”
Warren also projected more comfort and poise, especially in his opening address, which focused on the Big Ten being bold, innovative and resistant to the bureaucracy that has held back college athletics.
“We’ve got a little juice now,” Ohio State coach Ryan Day told ESPN on Wednesday. “The past couple of years, maybe you didn’t quite feel that same way. Now we’re a national conference, coast to coast, the future is bright here, certainly the finances are great, exciting, recruiting is positive.
“It’s great to be relevant right now.”
Warren’s first two years included plenty of criticism, both within and outside Big Ten circles — for initially cancelling the 2020 season because of COVID-19 concerns, for not communicating well enough with athletic directors and coaches, for forming an alliance with two inferior conferences, for holding up the inevitable College Football Playoff expansion, for not leading from the front enough.
But he’s now in a different phase of his commissionership. He’s sharing his vision and starting to show why the Big Ten hired him to steer one of college football’s two most powerful conferences through a time of significant change.
“People had a perception of me coming into the industry, and they were going to do everything they possibly could to make sure their perception became reality, which actually helped me,” Warren told ESPN. “Because I didn’t have many allies in the business, it gave me the space and the time to really work on a lot of things that are coming to life right now. All these things we’re doing right now were already on my interview sheet [for the Big Ten job].”
Warren considers himself “a loner,” a quiet person other than to those who know him best. His approach contrasted with predecessor Jim Delany, whose voice resonated for 30 years, and with SEC commissioner Greg Sankey, who now has Delany-like, top boss influence in college sports.
He also was an outsider, a surprise hire from the NFL who lacked baked-in relationships in college sports. When the pandemic hit, Warren naturally became more isolated, but he said those months “gave me the space and the time to really work on a lot of things that are coming to life right now.”
“We look back, what a tough time to step into that role,” Day said. “But to see where it is right now, he’s made some really good strides. He’s surrounded himself with some really good people, and I think [the expansion] was a big move.”
The roots of the USC and UCLA additions took shape before the Big Ten hired Warren. He revealed Tuesday that he began researching the schools, and the Big Ten’s sizable alumni presence in Los Angeles, while preparing for his Big Ten interview. While the Big Ten mostly had pushed East under Delany, who added Maryland and Rutgers to give the league a foothold in the New York and Washington D.C. markets, Warren, an Arizona native, always saw the West Coast as an advantageous place for the league.
There were other motivations, too.
“UCLA and USC are great academic and athletic fits for our league, but if we want to stay where we are and go beyond where we are as a league, it’s important that we go blow for blow with the SEC,” Rutgers coach Greg Schiano told ESPN. “Those were two important teams to bring into our league. We have a great league, and we just made it greater. Now you have coverage from New York to L.A. You wake up in the morning watching Big Ten football, and you go to bed watching Big Ten football, and everything in between is Big Ten football.
“That is important for the continued growth of our league.”
Schiano understands the impact of realignment. In 2003, during his first stint as Rutgers’ coach, Schiano was on “the wrong end” of the ACC’s expansion push into the old Big East, which eventually led to the Big East’s demise in football. After the SEC added Texas and Oklahoma last summer, he sensed the Big Ten would act, but didn’t predict USC and UCLA would be the play.
If the Big Ten looks to expand further, which Warren didn’t rule out Tuesday, other Pac-12 schools that are members of the Association of American Universities — primarily Washington and Oregon, but possibly Stanford and Cal — likely would be considered, according to sources. The media rights reveal, which reportedly will bring in at least $1 billion annually for the Big Ten, could spur more discussions. As a league source said, “There could be two weeks more of quietness, and then it gets noisy again.”
But others indicated the Big Ten also could be content to push forward as a 16-team league.
“I’m certainly not involved in those discussions, but it certainly seems like this isn’t going to stop,” Illinois coach Bret Bielema said. “I don’t know how fast, but I would think those teams out West would want something out there near them, too.”
While adding two notable athletic programs in a major market was essentially a no-brainer, the fallout from the moves — “collateral damage,” as several sources said — is significant, given the Big Ten’s relationship with the Pac-12 and Warren’s with fellow commissioner George Kliavkoff. The two newbie commissioners had grown close. Last August, Kliavkoff tweeted a picture of them embracing at a Rose Bowl meeting. Days later, they announced the Alliance with the ACC.
The USC and UCLA exits have essentially ended the often-mocked Alliance, which had many wondering why the Big Ten ever entered. Warren’s relationship with Kliavkoff, meanwhile, has been strained. But Warren made it clear he’s focused on his league and its future.
“This is very similar to business,” Warren said. “If a conference is allegedly on the brink, there are many more issues than members leaving, there are deeper issues. I’m not promoting conferences facing a crisis or going out of business, not at all, but I come out of the NFL for 21 years. In the NFL, either you succeed or you fail. That’s not only on the field. I’m talking about in business, operationally. Either you have your fan base or you don’t.”
The NFL businessman in Warren, who served as Minnesota Vikings chief operating officer before coming to the Big Ten, is starting to come out. This week, Warren spoke extensively about how the business side of college athletics has significantly outpaced its ability to govern and create structure, especially around major topics such as name, image and likeness.
He mentioned companies, such as Sears and Kodak, that fell apart because they couldn’t adjust to changing marketplaces where they had shares, and how college athletics must learn from them. Warren thinks college athletics is in the second year of a dynamic and unsettling period that could last one to three more years.
“We didn’t evolve with the times,” Warren said. “This disruption in the industry, I think it’s great. It’s warranted, I’m excited about it. Because the disruption now is forcing us to deal with some issues that we should have been dealing with five or 10 years ago. By us dealing with it now, it’ll become clear what this enterprise should look like.
“Disruption creates opportunity and it will set the market in regards to where people are situated.”
Those around the Big Ten feel better about where the league is situated for what comes next. Several coaches spoke about the value of being in the Big Ten or SEC going forward, especially with the likelihood of a college football split and an NFL-like super league being formed.
“We need someone or [multiple people] who have a vision, they’re going to take it to where it needs to go,” said Schiano, who coached the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2012 and 2013. “Kevin’s been in professional sports. Not everybody in college football has experienced professional sports.”
Warren also might be positioned to either work with or alongside Sankey, as leaders of the two most powerful leagues. At SEC media days, Sankey extolled his league’s greatness, took a few jabs at the Big Ten and made it clear where SEC stood on future CFP expansion.
Warren has a less-direct communication style, which remains an adjustment for those in the Big Ten. But this week, he started to flex a bit, projecting a clear and confident message.
“I’ve always been a very confident person,” Warren said Tuesday. “I’m not a person that will be governed by fear. I’m not concerned about what people think about me, I’m not concerned about failing or making a mistake. My confidence hasn’t changed at all, but I will never be arrogant.
“Today, we’ve had a good day. I’ll strive to be better tomorrow.”