Tony Petitti: B1G "days away" from revealing decision on divisions, format

It feels like a marathon at times, but the Big Ten is inching closer and closer to announcing its decision on divisions and the new scheduling format. So, Nebraska will soon find out its opponents and the makeup of its schedule.

First-year conference commissioner Tony Petitti said during a recent appearance on the Rich Eisen Show that the league is set to unveil all of that sooner than later.

“I think, honestly, we’re just maybe a few days away from revealing what it will look like going forward," Petitti said. "I think there’s been a lot (of talk) about divisions (versus) no divisions. Obviously, a lot of this work was done before I arrived in terms of what the right path is. The conference is playing nine games, there’s a commitment to continue to do that after everything was studied. I think you’ll see, in really short order, some information coming out of how we’re gonna play and how we’re gonna organize around our college football schedule.”

Petitti, who took over for Kevin Warren as commissioner this offseason, said that there has been collaboration between the conference office making recommendations, athletic directors giving feedback and Big Ten coaches "to get their views on scheduling."

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One item that's for certain: The Big Ten plans to remain a nine-game conference schedule.

"There’s some important things about nine (games) with strength of schedule but also just how you play and how long it would take to rotate," said Petitti, the former chief operating officer of MLB who was instrumental in TV deals and scheduling in that office. "So there are certain things that I think are important that 100 percent the conference reinforces it. You don’t wanna go too long where schools continue to miss each other in terms of how often they play.

"Just by comparison, one of the great things we changed at MLB, if you look at the schedule originally, everybody plays everybody now. If you’re the Yankees, you’re playing the Dodgers every year. … It just allows you to not have to wait that long, as a fan, to see those teams especially when those teams have star players. I think it’s exactly the same sort of idea here. It’s easier to have competitive balance when you’re playing more frequently. So I think those are some of the really important tenants you’ll see when we announce what the format is. I think those things were incredibly important and I think were handled the right way to make sure that members aren’t missing each other for too many years. It’ll feel more cohesive as a conference this way.”

Protecting rivalries is one of Petitti's chief issues to address, he said, because keeping traditions are important to him and the conference.

“You’ll see pretty soon. You can guess on some of (the protected rivalries), some of them are fairly obvious. Those are gonna be protected. You have to," Petitti said. "If you can get into a format where you’re protecting those core rivalries and, at the same time, you’re creating a rotation that has members playing each other frequently so you can provide that same type of connection is really important. But there are just certain things that you just absolutely have to protect.”

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