Big Ten Facing Backlash For Hotel Location For 2026 League Meetings

The Big Ten has become Schrodinger's conference: Simultaneously becoming the wealthiest and most powerful conference in college sports while pleading poverty and begging its members to avoid "unsustainable" spending. So it should be no surprise that the latest Big Ten league meetings are being held in one of the most opulent places they can find.

According to sports reporter Stewart Mandel, the Big Ten have booked meeting space at the luxurious Terranea resort in Palos Verdes, California, where one of the top items on the agenda is discussing its spending. Mandel shared screenshots of the room prices, which are obscene. The two nights that the league will be spending there run for $738 per night, per room.

But as the hotel's calendar shows, those prices wildly change depending on the time of year, with prices rising as high as $2,064 a night in some instances.

The Hypocrisy

College football fans were pretty annoyed to see that the Big Ten was lecturing people on unsustainable spending while treating themselves to an expensive resort for their meeting rather than going with a much cheaper option.

"Terranea is one of the top resorts in SoCal. There are many, many other options that are very nice and way more affordable. this is crazy," one user remarked.

"The Big Ten is a spiritually rotten entity that must be dismantled as soon as possible," wrote another.

"LMAO. What completely tone deaf jerks. They've lobbied politicians to 'reign things in' and this is where they hold their meetings? Hey, just book a banquet room at the Holiday Inn if we're worried about spending in college sports being 'out of control.'"

That said, some fans pointed out that it's probably not as expensive as the website makes it seem since the conference probably got a significant group rate discount.

Nevertheless, the Big Ten Conference choosing to treat their meeting like an expensive vacation amid talks of tightening the belt when it comes to spending still comes off as hypocritical to many.

It's just not the kind of problem that's high on anyone's agenda at the moment.

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This story was originally published May 19, 2026 at 11:42 AM.