Tony Petitti considers possibility of schools paying athletes

Amid NIL concerns, there are some calling for student-athletes to be made into employees and paid by the schools themselves. Big Ten Commissioner Tony Petitti addressed this possibility during the conference’s media days.

As Petitti explained, it’s difficult to predict the future. He also added that it’s fair to say that student-athletes could be entitled to more benefits than they currently earn.

“It’s tough to predict,” Tony Petitti said. “What I will say about that is I think there’s a commitment to understand that student-athletes can and be entitled to additional benefits. What form that takes, how that’s tied to academics, all of that needs a lot more discussion. I don’t want to predict on when that can happen in terms of a time frame.”

Petitti added that he wants what he considers to be true NIL to continue and that discussions with colleagues are going to be important. Earlier, Petitti described ‘true NIL’ as student-athletes taking advantage of their marketing rights, as opposed to what he sees as pay-for-play.

“There is a lot of discussion on what future miles can be. I think the understanding among my colleagues is we have to consider a lot of different changes to the system while at the same time encouraging the true NIL to keep happening.”

Tony Petitti isn’t the only one thinking about the future of NIL and potential paying players. Ohio State head coach Ryan Day, when thinking about the future, thinks that NIL might become something that gets collectively bargained. That would mean student-athletes are also employees.

“I mean you could probably list about four different ways it could look,” Day said. “Collective bargaining. There are just so many different ways that you can look at it. I think the tricky thing is there’s really no benchmark for this. You know like, ‘Well, why don’t we do it like this,’ you know it’s hard to do when it comes to the compensation and everything with the players. You have to make them employees if you’re going to do that, and that comes with a whole other set of issues.”

Tony Petitti addressed the Northwestern scandal

One of the biggest topics at Big Ten Media Day was the Northwestern hazing scandal. While there, Tony Petitti addressed what happened.

“Yeah, with the process right now Northwestern’s launched two investigations,” Tony Petitti said. “The process in the conference on these matters is led by the institution. There’s no investigation being launched by the conference. We’ll wait to see the results of those investigations and will have further comments at that time. Thank you.”