Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany announced Monday that he will retire on June 30, 2020, when his current contract expires.
The news that arguably the most influential figure in college sports was stepping down sent shockwaves through the industry, though it was not entirely unexpected. A search process to hire Delany’s replacement has already been initiated, and it will be led by Northwestern president Morton Schapiro and assisted by the search firm Korn Ferry.
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Delany joined the Big Ten in 1989, and he has been one of the most important and innovate voices in college athletics ever since. The Big Ten Network was launched in 2007 as Delany’s brainchild and the first conference-only national network of its kind. He was a significant player in conference expansion, too, adding four new members during his three decades at the helm and expanding the Big Ten’s footprint to the East Coast. The Big Ten was also an early leader in instant replay usage in college football. And, recently, he’s spoken out about his interest in discussing potential expansion of the College Football Playoff.
Delany spoke to The Athletic on Monday about the timing of his retirement, the legacy he hopes to leave, the state of college athletics in 2019 and more. The interview has been lightly edited for clarity.
Why now? Why is June 2020 the right time for you to step down?
I had a contract that concluded in 2015, and I decided to stay until 2018. I had a consultation with the presidents in 2018; they asked if I could stay until 2020. I said, “Great.” It just seems like the right time. It’ll be a little more than three decades, and I’ve had a chance to do a lot of things. I’ll be 72. My health is great, my energy is good. I think I’ve had plenty of opportunities to contribute, and it’s a good time to pass the baton to a new leader.
Have you thought about what retirement might look like for you?
I don’t really think about it as retirement, per se. I’m leaving the job here in 2020, but I think I’ll be pretty active. I expect I’ll probably do some teaching, speaking, consulting — I’m not sure exactly how it’ll all fit together. I won’t be pulling up into the Big Ten parking lot, but I will be active in a variety of ways as long as my health and interest are good. Right now, I don’t feel any different than I felt 10 or 15 years ago.
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You mentioned being at the conference office for more than three decades. How has the role of a conference commissioner changed from 1989 — when you got to the Big Ten — to now?
A couple of things. I think in the last decade to 15 years, the evolution of media has really impacted all institutions in America, and those involved in sports and politics as much as any because of the news cycle. That’s a big change. The news cycle is much faster, and you have to be more alert and more on your toes, both in terms of your own brand and how it’s covered but also in terms of how you participate with media companies. The other thing that we’ve been able to accomplish in this environment that I’m pretty proud of is our schools who are on-field competitors have been amazing collaborators during this time.
We’ve built teams both within the conference office and among athletic directors, presidents and faculty that we can put away the competitive and work on the collaborative — whether it’s on bowl arrangements or expansion or television, just the trust and ability to assess opportunities and risks and work together to achieve outcomes. That culture is something I’m very proud of in addition to whatever else has occurred on the field or with respect to television agreements. I just really like the people I’ve been working with for a long time.
One aspect of your legacy will undoubtedly be conference expansion. During your tenure, you added Penn State, Nebraska, Rutgers and Maryland. How do you look at those additions now? And the decision to expand the Big Ten’s footprint east?
I think our first effort in this area was a good idea, but probably not well-executed. That was Penn State, and a lack of execution on our part. I was fairly new, but I knew Penn State was academically and athletically a high-quality institution. When asked, I green lit it. I didn’t make the decision; presidents did. But maybe we didn’t have the best methodology or communication amongst ourselves about that. That wasn’t on Penn State, that was on us, a young commissioner, new leadership as presidents took over the board of directors. Nebraska, Maryland and Rutgers occurred at different times and probably for different reasons.
Overall, I like where we are. Our footprint is larger. We’re in two regions of the country, like most major conferences. Going out east was new for us, but we’ve got millions of people in that corridor — 15 percent of our alumni live out there — and they’re in contiguous areas, all major research institutions. While the competitive outcomes haven’t been there, necessarily, for Rutgers — and Maryland’s been fine in basketball, off in football — I think they’re long-term buys. I think they’ll do really well. Once they get fully integrated financially, they’ll be a force to be reckoned with.
I’d like to go back to 2007 and the launch of the Big Ten Network (for which I am a contributor). There were many skeptics at the time, people wondering whether a 24/7 network devoted to one college sports conference could work. You reflected on this some around the 10-year anniversary, but I’m curious how rewarding it feels now to see what it has become and how many other leagues have launched similar networks to enhance their own coverage of their schools.
I’m very proud of the Big Ten Network. It came about under certain circumstances. People forget, now that you have FOX bidding, that it hasn’t always been that way. From 1990 until, really, 2000 and a little later, ’07, ’08. ESPN was the only serious bidder for big packages. CBS would buy a few basketball and football games. NBC would buy Notre Dame games. But by and large, ESPN was the only one buying large packages. That worked really well for us for 12, 13 years. But it wasn’t the kind of robust competition we had hoped for.
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We actually created some of our own by creating a network. I think it benefitted us and it benefitted everyone else because the walls came tumbling down. ESPN helped conferences develop more networks, pay people more money. And it provided more exposure. We did it because we felt that we had more value and our value wasn’t being expressed by ESPN at the time.
It was a team effort. I may have envisioned it, but I assure you that everyone had fingerprints on it, and that’s why it was sustained. That’s why it succeeded. There was a collective internal effort from presidents, athletic directors and coaches. All supported it. It is very gratifying. It is a financial and artistic success, and it’s been emulated multiple times. It will probably be more so in the future.
You won’t be in this role when the Big Ten’s next round of media rights deal is up (at the end of the 2022-23 season), but I’m wondering what you expect to see in the sports media landscape moving forward in terms of media rights deals. It’s particularly interesting to me in the streaming era, where Amazon and Twitter, for example, have been getting involved in broadcasting live events.
I wouldn’t predict because I really don’t know. I feel like whatever the value propositions are out there, the Big Ten will do very well. Wishes and hopes are different than reality, so we really won’t know until we get out there. I believe that the quality of our universities, the history of our universities, the size of our footprint, the size of our alumni base, the quality of our coaches … all of that will contribute to us being treated very well in whatever environment it is.
The Big Ten announced the search process for your successor today, as well. What are some of the qualities that that person should have? What is that person going to be walking into?
That’s really a question for our presidents and the search firm. For me, I’m going to work here and stay in the moment with my job now. I’ll help in the transition as much as I can, but I’ll have a very light presence, a light footprint, in the naming of my successor and the analysis of what that person needs to bring to the job.
Each decade, there have been different challenges that require different leadership qualities. I think we’re in a really good place right now. We’ve got a great staff. We’ve got great cohesion within the conference. It’s a very good job, and I think we’ll get a lot of really good candidates. But I won’t try to handicap it. We have ample time, a good search firm and experienced presidents to lead this search.
There are a lot of hot topics and important issues in college sports right now, ranging from legal challenges to the amateurism system to the infamous transfer portal. How do you describe the current state of college athletics?
The state of college sports, in many ways, is good. It’s a tale of two cities, too, because in many ways it is being challenged. There are more opportunities for a world-class education. It’s global. It’s male and female. It’s black and white. There are lots of different levels of competition. At the same time, there are some existential questions about health and safety issues and also the amateurism issue. Those will be resolved in a country that believes in the rule of law. There will be outcomes, most of these things are statutory, so it’ll be some combination of courts and Congress. Could be courts by themselves.
I think it’ll take a little bit of time to resolve itself — I don’t think it gets resolved in a month or year or two years. I think it’ll take half a decade, and then things will settle down. The American people appreciate the unique institution that is American intercollegiate athletics. I feel like we’ve fought the good fight. We believe in the system. It probably needs continued evaluation, needs to be balanced between students and institutions and coaches, but we’re just in a period of fermentation. I expect that eventually it will settle down, but I don’t think that will happen immediately.
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What do you hope to work on or resolve over the next 15 months before your official retirement date? Playoff expansion?
Mostly, keeping the trains running on time. We’ll have a whole series of new bowl agreements. We’ll probably begin a process of identifying new conference tournament sites. Those are two internal issues. I’ll continue to oversee the litigation and communicate on that with our presidents.
With regards to longer-term strategic issues, whether it’s the Playoff in football or anything like that, I think that my window is short enough that I can opine but I won’t be here for the finishing and the resolution of those things. Basically, I think we’ve got a great team here and we’re going to continue to operate our championships, our compliance programs, our television agreements — we’re only finishing up the second year of our new TV agreements; they’re pretty complicated and robust so I want to make sure those continue to go off well — and I want to be available. I want to help however I can help. I’ve been incredibly appreciative and thankful for this opportunity to serve and lead, and also for my health and family. This has been great for all of us.
You’ve touched on this throughout our conversation, but what parts of your legacy and your tenure at the Big Ten are you most proud of personally?
I love the culture that we’ve created in the conference operation and also in the policy-making among and between the schools. That’s probably the thing that takes the longest to create. It’s really the connective tissue between partners, colleagues and friends that allows you to analyze, make judgments and work through it. You don’t always get it right. But if you create a good structure and system, you have a better chance to get it right. I think more often than not, we’ve been on the right side.
(Photo: Robin Alam / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)