What the !@(&!#! is the Big Ten doing?

Good morning, and thanks for spending part of your day with Extra Points.

I don’t mind admitting that I’m skeptical about the Big Ten’s reported interest in partnering with a private capital firm. I have lots of questions about what specific assets are supposed to be part of Big Ten Enterprises and how the league plans to monetize those better than it is now. I also think there are unanswered questions about the value of this money, given how wealthy the Big Ten and its biggest institutions already are. Additional reporting and conversations around the industry haven’t changed my thinking yet.

But I also recognize I do not have all the information. There are lots of specifics about Big Ten Enterprises — and the nuts and bolts of the proposed investment plan from UC Investments — that I don’t know yet. I also understand I am but a regular ol’ reporter, not a Master of the Universe financial wizard, and there may be nuances in public accounting or investment strategies that I don’t fully understand or appreciate.

So I really do want to understand the full-throated defense of selling an equity stake in future Big Ten revenue.

Last week, I reached out to the presidents’ offices at Ohio State, Michigan State, Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin and Maryland, as well as to the Big Ten conference office. I explained that I wanted to chat for a few minutes about the proposed investment package and to understand the argument for accepting the deal.

Representatives at Ohio State and Wisconsin politely declined to talk. Representatives at Maryland said they’d look in to whether the school had any additional comment and then did not get back to me. The other institutions did not respond to my message.

And you know what? That’s okay! Nobody owes me, personally, an answer or conversation. If a university wants to have that conversation with a more famous national media outlet, or somebody locally, or, shoot, release a statement itself, that’s completely in its right.

But even as the league appears to have put its conversations with the UC Pension Fund on a pause, I think it’s still critically important that somebody from the league office and/or multiple Big Ten institutions stand up and explain, with their whole chests, why they want to do this.

The closest thing I think I’ve seen to any sort of enthusiastic defense of the investment plan came from Ross Dellenger, writing for On3. The story did not involve a single Big Ten league or school official speaking on the record. That’s not a critique of Ross, but something I do think is notable.

Do I find this argument particularly compelling? Not really, if you aren’t Ohio State, Penn State or Oregon.