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Tony Petitti addresses expansion, media platforms in introduction as B1G commissioner

Keith Farner

By Keith Farner

Published:

Tony Petitti knows expansion is one of the top questions for the B1G and college sports in general, and entering next year, USC and UCLA will be B1G members.

As for what’s next, the new B1G commissioner deflected a specific answer.

“As commissioner of the Big Ten, my job is to make sure it is as strong in the present and future as it’s always been,” he said. “I’ll leave it at that.”

Petitti added that the content, or games, are what matter, and the platform is secondary.

“If you have something that’s great, people will find it,” he said. “So we’re in the process of that change right now. The legacy media companies are still a huge important piece of what goes on and that’s not changing anytime soon, it’s obviously, there are things to make it an evolution going on right now. But I still think that’s the core of what we’re doing. Having said that, the key thing is to make sure that these great games, our student-athletes, are on the platforms where young people want to be. And it’s really clear, young people want to share, want to collaborate and have a conversation.”

Keith Farner

Keith Farner has written about college football for newspapers and web sites since 2005.