Tim Pernetti’s first address as commissioner at American Athletic Conference media days last year included the use of the word “brand” seven times.
Pernetti, who’s seen college sports from a variety of different seats, including as the athletic director at Rutgers and president of IMG Academy, made clear he wanted those in his league to consider thinking about it differently.
“We all understand that growing our brand ultimately drives value for member institutions, their programs and student athletes,” he said at the time. “And that is our goal.”
That goal may well be within reach.
The American will officially roll out a sleek rebrand this week when Pernetti takes the stage for his second annual address at the conference’s media days in Charlotte.
The league will be referred to officially as the “American Conference” and just the “American” on second reference. There is no official shorthand anymore (particularly one that might be confused with, say, a certain Power Four conference).
“When you say, ‘build your brand,’ people are like, ‘What the hell does that mean?’” Pernetti quipped. “To me, a brand is more than a name. It can’t just be a name. A brand is more than a name. You have to define who you are. You have to define what you stand for, what the tenets are. You establish your values, and then you’ve got to live them every single day.”
The name shift may feel like semantics, but there are layers to changes that’ve percolated at conference HQ in Irving, Texas, since the early days of Pernetti’s tenure, which officially began in June 2024.
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The American’s rebrand marks a consequential shift for a conference that made its hay occupying the gray area somewhere between the Power Four and Group of Five in the college sports pecking order in redefining how it operates and presents itself.
“We’re facing an unprecedented and pivotal moment in intercollegiate athletics, but our conference views it as an opportunity to be bold, strategic and aggressive in terms of shaping our own future as a league,” said East Carolina Chancellor Philip Rogers, chairman of the search committee that brought Pernetti on as commissioner. “Part of doing that is being able to communicate that vision, mission and set of core values in a way that resonates with the public and really depicts what we’ve been doing for many years now.”
“When you say, ‘build your brand,’ people are like, ‘What the hell does that mean?’ To me, a brand is more than a name. It can’t just be a name. A brand is more than a name. You have to define who you are.”
— Tim Pernetti, AAC commissioner
The rebrand has been in the works for much of the past year. Pernetti tapped marketing and brand communication firm Anachel and its CEO Carrie Cecil, a 2022 SBJ Game Changer, to lead a brand evaluation process.
The league’s athletic directors and presidents were further cued in on the work during spring meetings last month in Florida, and the public will get a broader taste over the course of the coming week.
While the conference’s name will draw the bulk of the headlines, there are myriad prongs to the revamp. A new tagline — “Built to rise” — will be featured in varying branding and commercials in coming days and months. A new commercial for the league, too, is set to debut to bring broader awareness of the changes.
The American is also slated to reveal its first conference mascot, “Soar the Eagle.” The mascot is fun, sure, but it’s also another branding play that paves the way for fan engagement, merchandise and interactive content as a monetizable character.
Pernetti noted social channels will be attributed to Soar and it will be incorporated into the league’s content. He also teased a potential mascot seven-on-seven football game down the line.
“It‘s another extension of our brand as something that will have broader appeal to a broader audience,” Pernetti said. “Is it something that’s going to be potentially controversial, because no conferences do this. I actually don’t care. I like the fact that it’s innovative and it lines up directly with our tenet of innovation.”
There’s something poetic about Pernetti being the man guiding the American through this overhaul. As Rutgers AD, he moved the Scarlet Knights away from the American for the Big Ten over a decade ago.
Now leading the conference he once departed, Pernetti hasn’t exactly been shy about pressing forward amid a shifting college athletics landscape.
He pushed for a measure that was approved by the league’s presidents earlier this year that will require member institutions to put at least $10 million total toward revenue sharing with athletes by 2027-28, following the approval of the House settlement.
Pernetti also pushed for a shift in the league’s basketball unit distribution within the conference. Rather than divide units among each member institution, those schools that earn them will receive the full value of the NCAA Tournament units they earn in a given postseason, via the following year’s conference distribution.
The American, too, rolled up its commercial business assets to create American RISE Ventures in May.
“It’s a league that is a remarkable success story,” Charlotte AD Mike Hill said. “Tim has come in and really ignited our approach moving forward to so many different areas. He’s not one to sit still. He wants to be at the forefront of really every area of college athletics when it comes to our conference.”
The rebrand marks another step in the league’s evolution — one Pernetti and the conference hope creates more value down the line.
“As member institutions, we’re not in the same neighborhood financially as some of the autonomy conferences,” Pernetti conceded. “But make no mistake about it — that doesn’t mean we have a different expectation to compete and generate revenue and play at the highest level. That’s just going to take grit. It’s going to take courage to do some things like this that I think will turn a lot of heads.”
