Paul Finebaum details what the Big Ten is looking for in its next commissioner

Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren was named the new team president and chief executive officer of the Chicago Bears last Thursday following a three-and-a-half-year tenure with the conference. With the Big Ten now in the market for new leadership, college football analyst Paul Finebaum shared which direction he believes the Big Ten should go in moving forward.

“I suspect they will go old school because they don’t need the glitz, they don’t need the Brett Yormark from the entertainment world,” Finebaum said. “They don’t need what’s going on with (George) Kliavkoff in the west coast, I mean they need somebody who understands the minutia of college athletics.”

Warren notably kept the Big Ten conference stable through the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic and also helped expand the conference by adding USC and UCLA to the conference. The Bruins and Trojans won’t join the conference until 2024, which will be another new and unprecedented challenge for the next commissioner.

Finebaum may not be a fan of the job being done by the commissioners of the Big 12 and Pac-12 conferences, but does believe that the Big Ten’s man for the job can possibly be found in the ACC conference in Atlantic Coast Conference commissioner James Phillips.

“And even though at first I kind of shook my head when I heard his name, I think Jim Phillips might be the best choice,” Finebaum admitted. “Because he’s invested in the league, he went to school in the league, he’s been an AD at Northwestern, he nearly got the job last time.”

Phillips served as the athletic director at Northern Illinois followed by nearly a 15-year tenure with his alma mater Northwestern until 2021 before taking over as the commissioner of the ACC. Phillips’ predecessor John Swofford spent over two decades in the role before retiring in the summer of 2021, who doubled the conference’s revenue during his tenure and helped launch the ACC Network.

“And while some of his approaches have been criticized at the ACC, in terms of running the league from a day to day basis, he might fit their build better than anyone else,” Finebaum said.

Phillips has not been a commissioner for a very long time, but could be just what the Big Ten conference needs moving forward. Only time will tell who the conference tries to hire, but hopefully, the next Big Ten commissioner will be able to provide some longevity to the position and help continue to guide the conference upwardly during an ever changing college athletics landscape.