Trustees at Big Ten member institutions are pushing back after conference leaders circulated a proposal for a roughly $2.4 billion private-equity transaction to finance conference initiatives. Multiple trustees complained they were not given enough information and that the timeline felt rushed, raising concerns about oversight, governance and conflicts of interest amid sweeping conference realignment and media-rights negotiations. The deal — still under consideration by the conference — would monetize future assets and could reshape revenue flows for athletic departments and system budgets. Trustees’ objections focus on process transparency, fiduciary duty and whether campus boards should have a larger role in evaluating long-term commitments that affect institutional finances. If approved, the arrangement would be a major model for how athletic conferences leverage private capital; if blocked or substantially altered, it will expose tensions between centralized conference decision-making and campus-level trusteeship.