B1G commissioner Kevin Warren may have replaced SEC commissioner Greg Sankey as the biggest deal maker in college sports right now.

Under Warren, the conference just signed a multi-billion dollar contract with FOX, CBS, and NBC to televise Big Ten games and in the future, will add Pac 12 powerhouses USC and UCLA to the conference in the upcoming future.

He is making sure that his conference will get more exposure than any conference in the country and he realizes that responsibility comes with also seeing that student-athletes are getting their fair share of the revenue as well.

In this new clip from HBO’s “Real Sports” with Bryant Gumbel, Warren seems to be open to paying players and wants his conference to be part of that conversation in the future.

“One of the things I’m excited about is having honest dialogue with our student-athletes,” he said. “But we really need to sit down and start getting these issues on the table and start making some decisions.”

When Gumbel asked if Warren could  foresee the day that like Big Ten teams like Michigan State and Michigan could pay their student-athletes, Warren said “yes.”

Warren’s full interview with Gumbel on “Real Sports” can be seen Tuesday at 11 p.m. est on HBO or HBO/MAX.