3 of the 18 Big Ten athletic departments covered by Whistle (17%) use Playfly Sports, the multimedia rights holder, as of 4 Nov 2026: Michigan State University, Pennsylvania State University, University of Maryland. Across all 1,085 covered NCAA departments, 25 use Playfly Sports (2%), so the Big Ten is above the national adoption rate. Among multimedia rights vendors detected in the Big Ten, Playfly Sports ranks No. 2 of 3.
Data as of 4 Nov 2026.
Source: automated detection on each Big Ten department's public athletics website, vendor partner pages, job postings and staff titles, medium or higher confidence only; 18 covered Big Ten schools, 1,085 covered NCAA schools in total.
| School | Division | Location | Tracked staff positions | Directory last read |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Michigan State University | Division I | East Lansing, Michigan | 302 | 2026-11-03 |
| Pennsylvania State University | Division I | University Park, Pennsylvania | 476 | 2026-11-02 |
| University of Maryland | Division I | College Park, Maryland | 358 | 2026-11-01 |
Vendors in the same category detected at covered Big Ten departments. A school can appear under more than one vendor when it runs, say, one system for season tickets and another for single-game sales.
| Vendor | Big Ten schools | Share of covered schools |
|---|---|---|
| Learfield | 12 | 67% |
| **Playfly Sports** | 3 | 17% |
| JMI Sports | 1 | 6% |
A school is listed when its public athletics website, a vendor partner page, a job posting or a staff title references Playfly Sports with at least medium confidence. Detection is automated and re-run as directories refresh: absence means not detected, not not used, and contracts change, so confirm with the department before relying on a single listing.
This page is published when at least 2 covered Big Ten schools use the vendor; smaller combinations are kept out of search indexes. The conference's own page is Big Ten Athletics Staff Directory; every Playfly Sports school nationally is on Which colleges use Playfly Sports?.
3 of the 18 covered Big Ten athletic departments (17%) as of 4 Nov 2026: Michigan State University, Pennsylvania State University, University of Maryland.
17% of covered Big Ten schools use Playfly Sports against 2% of all 1,085 covered NCAA athletic departments.
The multimedia rights staff listed in each department's directory. Whistle shows their names, titles, emails and phones (where published) on paid plans, with alerts when the role changes hands.
From the staff directories athletic departments publish on their official websites, read automatically on a rolling schedule (NCAA Division I roughly weekly, Division II and III every three to four weeks). Whistle never publishes names, emails or phone numbers on public pages; staff can remove their details at any time at gowhistle.io/remove-my-info.