The Chicago Bears announced  that Matt Eberflus will be leaving the Chicago Bears as head coach and CEO, succeeding him in his role at the college athletics conference. After joining the Big Ten in 2019, Warren oversaw the conference’s 2024 expansion to include UCLA and Southern California. Earlier that summer, he revealed a significant array of media rights agreements for the conference. Warren led the Big Ten through the coronavirus outbreak that caused major disruptions to athletics as well.

Warren played in the NFL for a long time. He was the Minnesota Vikings’ chief operating officer prior to coming to the Big Ten. He played in the NFL for 21 seasons, 15 of them with the Vikings. The Detroit Lions and the St. Louis Rams have also collaborated with Warren, a certified attorney.

Due to its history of selecting black applicants for head coaching and front office roles, the NFL has come under heavy criticism. Since Washington recruited Jason Wright as its first black team president in 2020, Warren has become the team’s fifth president. Warren was a prominent college athletics conference’s first black commissioner.

After taking over for longtime commissioner Jim Delany in January 2020, Warren’s time with the Big Ten officially began. He departs after a little more than three years. There has been a notable shift in the composition of major conference commissioners recently. Both James Phillips of the ACC and George Kliavkoff of the Pac-12 started their careers in 2021. The only commissioner of a Power Five conference to have served in that capacity for at least three years is Greg Sankey, who has been with the SEC since 2015.