Kevin Warren, the commissioner of the Big Ten Conference, might exhale slightly on Saturday afternoon in Indianapolis once the final whistle blows and Northwestern or Ohio State is crowned the league’s champion. His conference will have completed a most unusual football season, one where matters like whether it was even safe to play at all became far more urgent than who won or lost.
But in the days after the game, Warren will retrain his attention on a conundrum nearly as daunting as playing a season during the coronavirus pandemic: what to do about the approximately $110 million worth of football games the Big Ten failed to deliver to its television partners.