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When the Big Ten officially introduced Tony Petitti as its new commissioner nearly a month ago, he listed four immediate priorities in his role as one of the most powerful people in college sports.

The league needs to integrate USC and UCLA for the 2024-25 season, explore the new media rights deal for the expanded College Football Playoff and focus on the tricky issue of name, image and likeness.

Lastly, Petitti prioritized the official completion of the massive television contract worth more than $7 billion negotiated by his predecessor, Kevin Warren. This issue may have seemed like a mere formality, but complications to the much-celebrated deal arose soon after he accepted the job.

Nearly three months before the season kicks off and those TV deals begin, the Big Ten does not have completed longform contracts, which include the fine print details. Instead, Petitti is engaged in significant “horse trading,” according to multiple sources, to get the NBC primetime deal finished and figure out what the network calls “outstanding issues” in order to uphold as much value as possible.

“These deals aren’t done, and they aren’t what they were represented to be from the standpoint of the NBC deal and the availability of all members to participate in November games in primetime,” said an industry source.

Interviews with nearly a dozen sources in and around the Big Ten and the college sports industry paint a picture of Petitti sprinting to navigate details left unresolved from his predecessor.

As a result, there’s a trail of unhappy athletic directors seeing money disappearing from their bottom line, frustrated television executives and big-name coaches irked about the lack of transparency in details that weren’t communicated to them.


Kevin Warren took over as Big Ten commissioner in January 2020, and in just three years at the helm, he dealt with the COVID-19 pandemic, helped bring USC and UCLA into the conference in a landscape-altering deal, and secured the massive TV payday before heading back to the NFL as team president and CEO of the Chicago Bears.

When he accepted that job, he said he was leaving the Big Ten in a “demonstratively better position,” which was true financially as its schools project more revenue than any league over the course of the deal. His work adding USC and UCLA, who join the conference after the 2023-24 season, was widely praised by members and provided a financial jolt to the television deal.

On campus, it’s a bit more muddled. Big Ten schools have seen potential revenue disappear the past few months from a contract that was announced back in August as being worth an average of nearly $1 billion per year through the 2029 football season. More than $70 million in total is suddenly in flux — nearly $5 million per school — and it has left administrators around the league seeking answers and calling for financial accountability.

Recently, schools have found out:

  • They are going to have to pay back nearly $40 million to Fox because, according to sources, Warren delivered NBC the Big Ten football title game in 2026 without the full authority to do so. This all has unfolded under the complicated backdrop of the Big Ten conference not actually controlling the rights to the inventory of this latest deal — the Big Ten Network does, which is majority owned by Fox. (More on that below.)

  • They are going to have to pay $25 million total for a deal to pay Fox back for lost 2020 football game inventory. This came after an arrangement between Fox and the conference that was unable to muster the lost revenue from the COVID-19 season.

  • There’s tens of millions of dollars of value of the NBC primetime deal in flux, as Petitti has been racing to ensure it keeps as much of its original value as possible. Historically in the Big Ten, after the first weekend in November, schools were not required to play night games for myriad reasons — health, recovery and campus logistics among them. These were known in league circles as “tolerances,” and prior television contracts accounted for them.

Multiple sources told ESPN there’s been pushback from a number of schools, including Michigan, Ohio State and Penn State, to play those late-November night games under the new contract. That leaves Petitti to figure out how to uphold a deal for hundreds of millions of dollars for primetime games without cooperation from some of the league’s marquee teams for part of the regular season’s most important month.

Athletic departments and coaches around the Big Ten say they were surprised November night games would be part of the deal. They weren’t asked for permission to play them prior to the deal or informed of the change ahead of the deal, according to sources. At the same time, NBC wasn’t aware until well after the initial contract was signed this summer that these big-brand schools had historic tolerances that were part of the prior television arrangements and would resist being available.

“NBC was surprised, and I was surprised,” said Michigan athletic director Warde Manuel. “We had not discussed, and I had not discussed with anyone in the league to change the tolerances we had agreed upon years ago.”

Within the industry, though, there was an expectation that, considering the scope of the deal, all schools would play in prime time.

“The fault here is with the administrators on campus,” said another industry source. “How did the presidents, chancellors and athletic directors not know this? The universities all signed off on the deal.”

While this is being worked through, Ohio State, Penn State and Michigan State recently agreed to concessions to make short-term sacrifices to help the league make up for some lost revenue from the NBC deal.

Penn State will play on the road in a short week on Black Friday against Michigan State, a game that was scheduled before Penn State agreed to it. Ohio State will host Michigan State on Nov. 11, the latest-ever home night game in Ohio State history, which is viewed as another concession to help the league through this moment.

“This is what he’s walking into right now,” another industry source said of Petitti. “Tony is trying to save it, and what Penn State and Ohio State are doing is actually trying to minimize the losses.”

Warren did not return requests for comment.

“We’re excited to start our Big Ten deal this fall,” an NBC Sports spokesman told ESPN. “We had a great relationship with Kevin Warren, and same with Tony Petitti. We’re confident that any and all outstanding issues are well on their way to being resolved.”


A full understanding of the deal Warren helped negotiate with NBC, CBS and Fox begins with a bizarre twist — the Big Ten didn’t technically own the rights. (Hence the tension over Warren using the Big Ten title game without Fox’s permission.)

In 2016, when the Big Ten announced its long-term television deal with Fox and ESPN, the announcement didn’t include all the details. One of the things that didn’t get disclosed at the time, nor as the new deal was being discussed in recent months, was that the Big Ten Network had acquired all of the league’s programming rights back in 2016 through an undisclosed date. The length of that deal with the Big Ten Network from 2016 is carried at least through the current deal, which has been announced through the 2029-30 season.

This relationship was known by athletic directors, television executives at rival networks and officials in other leagues, even if it wasn’t announced publicly. It flashed out into the public at various times, including Sports Business Journal reporting in April 2022 that two Fox senior executives were in the room when various media companies — ESPN, Amazon, NBC and others — met with the league about their television packages.

What this also essentially meant was the latest round of Big Ten television deals were effectively sub-license arrangements, in which both the Big Ten Network and Fox essentially controlled the rights and worked with the Big Ten to sub-license them off. That meant a majority of the value of the deal had already been sold.

“It was a joint negotiation with the conference and FOX working together and doing deals with these other networks,” said an industry source. “They both needed each other to do the deals.”

That factor is key to understanding the issues Petitti faces. There are two new partners — NBC and CBS — attempting to work out their longform deals. There’s a familiar partner, Fox, that’s riding shotgun on this bumpy ride, including being upset Warren promised a title game Fox controlled without permission.

The league and Fox had also been in talks with Amazon about the deal that ultimately went to NBC, but according to sources, there was late pushback by key campus stakeholders that some of the biggest brands weren’t ready for part of a marquee package to only be available on streaming. That set up the push to get as much money as possible from NBC.

And it leaves the league facing a decision on a potential bonus for Warren, who didn’t have a bonus clause tied to a television deal in his contract. Warren’s predecessor, Jim Delany, got a bonus of more than $20 million that was announced in 2017, and he’s still getting paid for it because he led the negotiation that sold all of the rights through this decade. (The bonus had been in Delany’s contract prior to the deal.)

The league has brought in an outside search firm, Korn Ferry, to determine whether Warren’s work with this television deal should bring him a bonus.


One certainty is that the Big Ten television deal, despite the size, has not satisfied many coaches around the league.

In a Big Ten Zoom call with Warren and the league’s men’s basketball coaches this summer after the deal was announced, sources say, Michigan State basketball coach Tom Izzo was critical of Warren for the lack of transparency and consultation on the deal.

Izzo recently said coaches weren’t consulted by the league prior to the deal: “One thing about coaches, you’re almost asking the wrong people because we’re the last to know anything,” Izzo told ESPN.

Izzo added that he has “concerns” on the amount of games available only on streaming and said that would be among his first questions to Petitti, as “it was not discussed with us [coaches] at all.”

“Those are some things I’d like to see with the new commissioner, that there’s some transparency in working together,” Izzo said.

Izzo’s concerns reverberate among the rest of the Big Ten coaches, as Ohio State coach Chris Holtmann added: “For our league to continue to grow and evolve in this new era, I think at the very minimum the veteran coaches like (Izzo and Purdue’s Matt Painter) should have a direct line of communication and a voice in the conversation.”

Ohio State football coach Ryan Day echoed Izzo’s sentiment about communication and transparency.

“There was a collective disappointment among coaches on how the night game issue was handled,” Day said. “We were surprised when it emerged, and there was no consultation on the change with coaches as a group prior to the television contract being announced.”

Additional reporting by Jeff Borzello.

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Stanton won’t blame ailing elbows on torpedo bats

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Stanton won't blame ailing elbows on torpedo bats

NEW YORK — Giancarlo Stanton, one of the first known adopters of the torpedo bat, declined Tuesday to say whether he believes using it last season caused the tendon ailments in both elbows that forced him to begin this season on the injured list.

Last month, Stanton alluded to “bat adjustments” he made last season as a possible reason for the epicondylitis, commonly known as tennis elbow, he’s dealing with.

“You’re not going to get the story you’re looking for,” Stanton said. “So, if that’s what you guys want, that ain’t going to happen.”

Stanton said he will continue using the torpedo bat when he returns from injury. The 35-year-old New York Yankees slugger, who has undergone multiple rounds of platelet-rich plasma injections to treat his elbows, shared during spring training that season-ending surgery on both elbows was a possibility. But he has progressed enough to recently begin hitting off a Trajekt — a pitching robot that simulates any pitcher’s windup, arm angle and arsenal. However, he still wouldn’t define his return as “close.”

He said he will first have to go on a minor league rehab assignment at an unknown date for an unknown period. It won’t start in the next week, he added.

“This is very unique,” Stanton said. “I definitely haven’t missed a full spring before. So, it just depends on my timing, really, how fast I get to feel comfortable in the box versus live pitching.”

While the craze of the torpedo bat (also known as the bowling pin bat) has swept the baseball world since it was revealed Saturday — while the Yankees were blasting nine home runs against the Milwaukee Brewers — that a few members of the Yankees were using one, the modified bat already had quietly spread throughout the majors in 2024. Both Stanton and former Yankees catcher Jose Trevino, now with the Cincinnati Reds, were among players who used the bats last season after being introduced to the concept by Aaron Leanhardt, an MIT-educated physicist and former minor league hitting coordinator for the organization.

Anthony Volpe, Jazz Chisholm Jr., Cody Bellinger, Paul Goldschmidt and Austin Wells were among the Yankees who used torpedo bats during their season-opening sweep of the Brewers.

Stanton explained he has changed bats before. He said he has usually adjusted the length. Sometimes, he opts for lighter bats at the end of the long season. In the past, when knuckleballers were more common in the majors, he’d opt for heavier lumber.

Last year, he said he simply chose his usual bat but with a different barrel after experimenting with a few models.

“I mean, it makes a lot of sense,” Stanton said. “But it’s, like, why hasn’t anyone thought of it in 100-plus years? So, it’s explained simply and then you try it and as long as it’s comfortable in your hands [it works]. We’re creatures of habit, so the bat’s got to feel kind of like a glove or an extension of your arm.”

Stanton went on to lead the majors with an average bat velocity of 81.2 mph — nearly 3 mph ahead of the competition. He had a rebound, but not spectacular, regular season in which he batted .233 with 27 home runs and a .773 OPS before clubbing seven home runs in 14 playoff games.

“It’s not like [it was] unreal all of a sudden for me,” Stanton said.

Yankees manager Aaron Boone described the torpedo bats “as the evolution of equipment” comparable to getting fitted for new golf clubs. He said the organization is not pushing players to use them and insisted the science is more complicated than just picking a bat with a different barrel.

“There’s a lot more to it than, ‘I’ll take the torpedo bat on the shelf over there — 34 [inches], 32 [ounces],'” Boone said. “Our guys are way more invested in it than that. And really personalized, really work with our players in creating this stuff. But it’s equipment evolving.”

As players around the majors order torpedo bats in droves after the Yankees’ barrage over the weekend — they clubbed a record-tying 13 homers in two games against the Brewers — Boone alluded to the notion that, though everyone is aware of the concept, not every organization can optimize its usage.

“You’re trying to just, where you can on the margins, move the needle a little bit,” Boone said. “And that’s really all you’re going to do. I don’t think this is some revelation to where we’re going to be; it’s not related to the weekend that we had, for example. Like, I don’t think it’s that. Maybe in some cases, for some players, it may help them incrementally. That’s how I view it.”

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Rangers’ Eovaldi gets season’s 1st complete game

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Rangers' Eovaldi gets season's 1st complete game

CINCINNATI — Nathan Eovaldi pitched a four-hitter for the majors’ first complete game of the season, and the Texas Rangers blanked the Cincinnati Reds 1-0 on Tuesday night.

Eovaldi struck out eight and walked none in his fifth career complete game. The right-hander threw 99 pitches, 70 for strikes.

It was Eovaldi’s first shutout since April 29, 2023, against the Yankees and just the third of his career. He became the first Ranger with multiple career shutouts with no walks in the past 30 seasons, according to ESPN Research.

“I feel like, by the fifth or sixth inning, that my pitch count was down, and I feel like we had a really good game plan going into it,” Eovaldi said in his on-field postgame interview on Victory+. “I thought [Texas catcher Kyle Higashioka] called a great game. We were on the same page throughout the entire game.”

In the first inning, Wyatt Langford homered for Texas against Carson Spiers (0-1), and that proved to be all Eovaldi needed. A day after Cincinnati collected 14 hits in a 14-3 victory in the series opener, Eovaldi (1-0) silenced the lineup.

“We needed it, these bats are still quiet,” Texas manager Bruce Bochy said of his starter’s outing. “It took a well-pitched game like that. What a game.”

The Reds put the tying run on second with two out in the ninth, but Eovaldi retired Elly De La Cruz on a grounder to first.

“He’s as good as I have seen as far as a pitcher performing under pressure,” Bochy said. “He is so good. He’s a pro out there. He wants to be out there.”

Eovaldi retired his first 12 batters, including five straight strikeouts during one stretch. Gavin Lux hit a leadoff single in the fifth for Cincinnati’s first baserunner.

“I think it was the first-pitch strikes,” Eovaldi said, when asked what made him so efficient. “But also, the off-speed pitches. I was able to get some quick outs, and I didn’t really have many deep counts. … And not walking guys helps.”

Spiers gave up three hits in six innings in his season debut. He struck out five and walked two for the Reds, who fell to 2-3.

The Rangers moved to 4-2, and Langford has been at the center of it all. He now has two home runs in six games to begin the season. In 2024, it took him until the 29th game of the season to homer for the first time. Langford hit 16 homers in 134 games last season during his rookie year.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Source: USC flips Ducks’ Topui, No. 3 DT in 2026

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Source: USC flips Ducks' Topui, No. 3 DT in 2026

USC secured the commitment of former Oregon defensive tackle pledge Tomuhini Topui on Tuesday, a source told ESPN, handing the Trojans their latest recruiting victory in the 2026 cycle over the Big Ten rival Ducks.

Topui, ESPN’s No. 3 defensive tackle and No. 72 overall recruit in the 2026 class, spent five and half months committed to Oregon before pulling his pledge from the program on March 27. Topui attended USC’s initial spring camp practice that afternoon, and seven days later the 6-foot-4, 295-pound defender gave the Trojans his pledge to become the sixth ESPN 300 defender in the program’s 2026 class.

Topui’s commitment gives USC its 10th ESPN 300 pledge this cycle — more than any other program nationally — and pulls a fourth top-100 recruit into the impressive defensive class the Trojans are building this spring. Alongside Topui, USC’s defensive class includes in-state cornerbacks R.J. Sermons (No. 26 in ESPN Junior 300) and Brandon Lockhart (No. 77); four-star outside linebacker Xavier Griffin (No. 27) out of Gainesville, Georgia; and two more defensive line pledges between Jaimeon Winfield (No. 143) and Simote Katoanga (No. 174).

The Trojans are working to reestablish their local recruiting presence in the 2026 class under newly hired general manager Chad Bowden. Topui not only gives the Trojans their 11th in-state commit in the cycle, but his pledge represents a potentially important step toward revamping the program’s pipeline to perennial local powerhouse Mater Dei High School, too.

Topui will enter his senior season this fall at Mater Dei, the program that has produced a long line of USC stars including Matt Leinart, Matt Barkley and Amon-Ra St. Brown. However, if Topui ultimately signs with the program later this year, he’ll mark the Trojans’ first Mater Dei signee since the 2022 cycle, when USC pulled three top-300 prospects — Domani Jackson, Raleek Brown and C.J. Williams — from the high school program based in Santa Ana, California.

Topui’s flip to the Trojans also adds another layer to a recruiting rivalry rekindling between USC and Oregon in the 2026 cycle.

Tuesday’s commitment comes less than two months after coach Lincoln Riley and the Trojans flipped four-star Oregon quarterback pledge Jonas Williams, ESPN’s No. 2 dual-threat quarterback in 2026. USC is expected to continue targeting several Ducks commits this spring, including four-star offensive tackle Kodi Greene, another top prospect out of Mater Dei.

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