The American Athletic Conference on Wednesday hired former Rutgers athletic director Tim Pernetti as its next commissioner to replace the retiring Mike Aresco.
Pernetti, 53, will take over in June.
A New Jersey native and former Rutgers football player, Pernetti currently is the president of IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida, a college prepatory school for elite athletes.
He has held several executive roles at IMG since 2015, including vice president of its sports and entertainment company, Endeavor, and president of IMG’s college sports division.
“It is truly an honor to be selected by the chancellors and presidents of the American Athletic Conference to serve as their commissioner at this important time in collegiate athletics that demands innovative leadership and consensus-driven change,” Pernetti said in a statement.
He was athletic director at Rutgers from 2009-13, helping land the school membership in the Big Ten after years in the Big East and one year in the American Athletic Conference.
Pernetti resigned at Rutgers in spring of 2013 after it became public that he had been shown evidence of men’s basketball coach Mike Rice Jr. physically and verbally abusing his players and only suspended and fined Rice instead of firing him.
Before Rutgers, Pernetti worked in programming for ABC Sports and helped start College Sports Television, which later became CBS Sport Network.
He also helped launch the MLS team New York FC after leaving Rutgers.
“I have known Tim for a long time, and he is a superb choice to lead this conference,” Aresco said.
Aresco, 74, is stepping down after more than a decade as commissioner. He started as Big East commissioner in 2012 and led the reconstitution of the American Athletic Conference after the split between the Big East’s basketball schools and its major college football members in 2013.
The American Athletic Conference will be a 14-member football conference next season, with SMU leaving for the Atlantic Coast Conference and Army set to join for football only. Wichita State is also a member for basketball.
The AAC has been in transition the last two years with UCF, Houston and Cincinnati leaving for the Big 12 and six new schools joining in 2023: North Texas, Rice, FAU, Charlotte, UAB and UTSA.
Other members include Memphis, Temple, South Florida, Tulsa, East Carolina, Navy and Tulane.
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