CHICAGO -- One of the most powerful persons in college athletics just put a timeline on his retirement.
Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany told reporters Tuesday at 2016 Big Ten Media Days he will not be around in six years when the league's media rights deal expires in 2022.
"I'm won't be here in six years. I'm 68," Delany said. "Anything inside six years, very likely."
USA Today reports that Delany plans to step down in 2020, citing a "person with direct knowledge of the situation."
The veteran administrator is considered one of the most powerful persons not only in college athletics but in all of sports. He has been Big Ten commissioner since 1989.
The league's newly negotiated rights deal with ESPN and Fox is worth $2.6 billion. The Big Ten's deal will be the first to expire among those signed by the Power Five conferences. Delany had sought a longer-term deal for his league similar to the one announced last week by the ACC, which links it to ESPN through 2036.
"That's really where the market was for us," Delany said. "It's really a balance between security and the dollars that can be generated in the short term. We've done 20-year deals. We've done 10-year deals. In this case, we thought six provided us some mid-term security."
During his tenure, Delany basically launched the last round of conference realignment in 2009 with a press release that shook the college world. The Big Ten has added four schools via expansion under Delany: Penn State, Nebraska, Maryland and Rutgers.
Delany's vision of launching a conference-centric network in the mid-2000s led to the wildly successful Big Ten Network.
In his 28 years, the Big Ten has won three national championships in football and two in men's basketball. He has guided the conference's relationship with the Rose Bowl through the Bowl Coalition, Bowl Alliance, Bowl Championship Series (BCS) and the current College Football Playoff.
To this day, the Rose Bowl remains on its original date -- Jan. 1 at 2 p.m PT. (The only exception is if the game falls on a Sunday, conflicting with the NFL.)
"There may be some movement for other bowls but I don't foresee change in how the Rose Bowl is sequenced in the College Football Playoff," Delany said.
He would not analyze recent events at the ACC and the Big 12, which is actively exploring expansion.
"There's a lot of drama," Delany said. "I won't comment on other people's drama."
The commissioner also said the Big Ten had no immediate plans to install a transfer rule banning those guilty of serious misconduct. The SEC, Big 12 and Pac-12 all have such conference policies.
The Big 12 is working on a conference rule that would ban incoming freshman recruits guilty of serious misconduct.
"This is not the tail wagging the dog, this is about getting it right ...," he said. "To think you can pass a four-or-five sentence or four-or-five paragraph conference rule to accommodate all that, I think is putting a lot of faith in conference policies."