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Former WVU president warns Big Ten, SEC commissioners have too much power over college sports

Byington mugby: Alex Byington06/03/26_AlexByington

After more than four decades leading multiple major universities, including the nearly 15 years as West Virginia‘s president, E. Gordon Gee sat before the Senate Commerce Committee on Wednesday sporting his trademark bowtie to advocate for the passage of the “Protect College Sports Act.”

During Wednesday’s hearing, titled “Protecting College Sports: Supporting Student Athletes, Restoring Fair Competition, and Saving the Games Fans Love,” the 82-year-old Gee argued the new bipartisan legislation co-authored by Sens. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is a good start to addressing the “financial crisis” plaguing not just collegiate athletics but American universities at large.

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And he’s pointing the finger directly at the two most powerful figures in college sports — Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti and SEC commissioner Greg Sankey. In his prepared opening statement, Gee suggests university presidents should stand up against the two prominent Power Four leaders and take back some authority regarding the future of college sports, especially when it comes to potentially pooling media rights.

“I’ll just be very honest, I think we have turned over too much power to (conference) commissioners, and they have a very limited notion of what (their responsibility) should be about,” Gee said during his opening statement. “The word ‘student’ is not in their lexicon, the word ‘athlete’ is and the word ‘money,’ and this is an issue we have to get at. And I don’t mean to throw them under a bus, even though I just did, but what I do mean to say is that I think university presidents need to take charge of this issue.

“I think about (my colleagues) in the Big Ten and the SEC, I know most of those presidents, they’re really smart people,” Gee concluded. “But … we have a revenue problem, and either we grow the pie, or we destroy everything we’re about — it’s pretty damn simple.”

The Big Ten and SEC released a joint statement expressing their opposition to the “Protect College Sports Act” on Tuesday evening, citing several “critical issues” with the bipartisan legislation. Included in the bill is language allowing for the optional collective pooling of media rights among the 10 FBS conferences, something the Big Ten and SEC are vehemently against given their lucrative agreements with FOX and ESPN, respectively.

In fact, the SEC’s 16 presidents and chancellors pushed back against the idea of pooling media rights in a statement released last week on the same day the bill was first made public.

“The SEC has been intentional, through years of thoughtful planning and decision-making, in strategically positioning itself for future media negotiations,” the SEC statement read. “The conference must retain the ability to act in the best interests of its membership. A such, the SEC does not support assigning its media rights to a third party and remains firmly committed to independently conducting its media negotiations.”

Of course, Gee and other supporters of the “Protect College Sports Act” in Washington D.C. on Wednesday rejected that argument and suggested pooling media rights is the only way for college athletics to remain profitable while also continuing to subsidize Olympic and women’s sports.

“Unless we grow the pie, we’re not going to be able to sustain really positive support for women’s and Olympic sports, and that is the ultimate centerpiece – in my view – of this legislation,” Gee said Wednesday.