Tim Pernetti has a lot on his mind.
The new American Athletic Conference commissioner has been on the job for one month. He took over for Mike Aresco, who had been the AAC commissioner since the conference’s inception in 2013.
But Aresco retired earlier this year. Pernetti said his main priority is “alignment” and making sure everyone in the conference is on the same page. He said he plans to visit AAC campuses throughout the summer and into the start of football season.
“Getting everybody on the same page is 50 percent of the battle in collegiate athletics,” he said. “If you get everybody on the same page, there’s no saying what you can do.”
Pernetti spoke with The Commercial Appeal on Wednesday to discuss Memphis, the AAC and college athletics as a whole.
Answers have been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.
Commercial Appeal: How is the conference bracing for the impact to college athletics expected by the settlement in House v. NCAA (paying players)?
Pernetti: We’ve got unanimity across the conference on this. Everybody’s aligned. We all feel strongly that the settlement is important, that it happens. And it also gives us the ability to then spend our time focused on how we’re going to build the future, versus just playing defense.
I think everybody in collegiate athletics, with a lot of these challenges, has been playing defense on a lot of these things. In our conference, everybody’s accepted that the House settlement, while challenging, it’s important that it gets accomplished now so we can move forward.
CA: New Memphis athletic director Ed Scott said the Tigers’ athletic department would opt-in to revenue sharing with athletes. Is that something that’s been discussed conference-wide?
Pernetti: Everybody has their own point of view. I think some institutions in our conference are resourced in different ways than…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/aac-commissioner-tim-pernetti-said-182303126.html
Author : The Commercial Appeal
Publish date : 2024-07-03 18:23:03
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.
