Gary Barta Discusses Ongoing Changes in College Athletics

Iowa AD Talks Conference Expansion, Scheduling Challenges, NIL

Iowa Athletics Director Gary Barta. (Rob Howe/HawkeyeNation.com)

IOWA CITY, Iowa - Gary Barta said on Friday he doesn’t expect any more Big Ten expansion news in the near future.

What comes next, he said, was working out all of the logistical details of how the conference will work with 16 schools after last week’s addition of USC and UCLA beginning in 2024.

The biggest concern, Barta said, is with travel, including the idea of travel partners within the league to cut down on, for example, multiple trips to one side of the United States or another to play games.

“Whatever the solution is — and yes, we've talked about that possibility (about travel partners) — whatever the solution is, one of the first things the ADs and the presidents said to the conference is we've got to figure out how to mitigate the travel challenge,” Barta said during a press conference at Carver-Hawkeye Arena. “Because if you're at Rutgers and you're going to USC or if you're at UCLA and you're going to Maryland there's going to have to be some sort of recognition of that when we get into travel.”

Barta said he was “a little bit surprised” when he was first told of USC’s and UCLA’s interest in joining the conference, but the idea of adding two blue-blood athletic programs in the nation’s second-largest TV market as the Big Ten gets close to completing a new rights deal was something the league couldn’t pass up.

“​​We were breaking down — does it make sense, does it meet the criteria, should we say yes,” Barta said. “And clearly after those four or five days of discussions, we decided that the time was right, the schools were right, and so I'm excited about it because I do know what they bring to the table.”

Barta said the Big Ten had talked about the possibility of expansion was discussed last summer in the wake of the move of Oklahoma and Texas to the Southeastern Conference, but it was set aside as the conference began the discussion for its new TV rights deal.

The expected substantial increase in money will help cover some of the logistical challenges, including how teams will get to and from sites.

“With an increased and anticipated increase in money, I think all of us have talked about we have to make sure if our soccer team or volleyball team is expected to go play on a Tuesday night in (Los Angeles) … we've been chartering in volleyball, but that might be a situation where maybe in the past we wouldn't have chartered in soccer, maybe we're going to have to now,” Barta said. “It's high on our list to look at scheduling and travel as it relates to student-athlete well-being in this new day.”

But there are still plenty of moving parts to the expansion talk, and Barta tried to answer all of the questions:

— On Notre Dame being a possible expansion candidate. “I would tell you that Notre Dame, when we went through that discussion when Oklahoma and Texas were added to the SEC, we talked about should we (expand) — if we do, why, and if we do, with whom, Notre Dame was certainly on that list. I would reiterate we are not seeking applications, but as people come to the Big Ten, they're certainly being received, and then trying to make a decision.

“I know your direct question is would I support it. I would probably eventually support it. I don't anticipate that being a decision that I'll be making this summer. But again, I don't have a crystal ball. But it's not before us right now.”

— On whether the Big Ten would consider adding other West Coast teams, like Oregon and Washington. “Again, my answer is very similar in that we've studied the types of schools. I'm not going to talk directly about any one school. I doubt that I'll be forced or asked to make that decision or our president will be this summer, so right now my sense is we are where we are, and we're going to move forward with who we have, with the addition of USC and UCLA. Right now I'm not really going to speculate whether or not, because I don't think we're going to be adding any more this summer. That's just one person's opinion.”

— On the reaction of Iowa’s head coaches to expansion. “I spoke with all the head coaches, some in a group and then several individually, and I can't speak for all of them other than to tell you generally they're excited. Generally they know what USC and UCLA bring in terms of history and tradition.

“But I also know — they don't know yet and we don't know yet — if you're the baseball coach or the soccer coach or the gymnastics coach you don't yet know what your schedule is going to look like. So generally they're excited because of the competition. Just trying to get the logistics in the next year -- there's a two-year period before it occurs, so I figure we have about a year, year and a half at the most to get the schedules figured out.

“What we've talked about is we'll work on that sport by sport. So the track coaches will get together in the Big Ten and bring in USC and UCLA and say, what are the most important components in your sport, what are the most important in baseball and softball and basketball. We'll go through that process.

“Football frankly will be the easiest to resolve because it's one day a week, and you just fly in and you fly out. Some of the other sports that play like softball, playing a three-game series over a weekend, how do you factor that in, where are the championships in each of those sports.”

— On the nine-game Big Ten football schedule, and whether Iowa would keep some or all of its rivalries. “I want to play all those rivalries. I want to play Minnesota, I want to play Wisconsin, Northwestern, Nebraska, the bordering states, particularly where we have trophy games. I would like to play each of those every year.

“On the flip side, I'm a member of a bigger organization, and so where it lands, I'm going to fight for as many of the rivalries as we can get, but I also understand it may be in the best interest of the conference to not play every one of those every year.

“If one of those gets in a rotation that's not every year, we'll be OK, but I love playing those rivalry games. It's just not possible to do them all, especially when you have 14, soon to be 16 different schools that are involved in the equation.”

— On whether Iowa will renew its football series with Iowa State when the current contract ends in 2025. “(Iowa State athletics director) Jamie (Pollard) and I haven't talked about it specifically. We both know where it sits right now, where it ends, but I think you've heard me say over the years, as long as both of us are here and unless something were to change dramatically, we both know or believe that it's good for both of our programs and there's every intention to continue it going. But this summer we haven't had additional conversations about it.”