The American Athletic Conference has been a conference in a state of constant transformation it seems over the last few years, and the changes will continue to come in 2014. The conference will be adding East Carolina, Tulsa and Tulane over the summer but will lose Rutgers (Big Ten) and Louisville (ACC). It turns out they are also losing a key member of their leadership staff in the conference offices. Nick Carparelli, senior associate commissioner for football and marketing, is leaving the conference to take on a position with athletic apparel company Under Armour.
“I feel fortunate to join a team like Under Armour,” Carparelli said in a phone interview with Sports Illustrated. “It’s one of the great modern day business success stories.”
Under Armour will be adding an employee who has overseen the efforts to rebrand a conference from the fallout of the Big East to the formation of the American as well as a pair of bowl games, the Pinstripe Bowl and the new bowl game in Miami in 2014. He also helped the conference take advantage of scheduling to maximize television exposure over his 12-year stay in the Big East and American.
“I’m proud to have been associated with the Big East Conference,” Carparelli told Sports Illustrated. “I grew up a Big East fan and the Big East will go down in history as being one of the great success stories in sports. It was 30-plus years of success, despite the odds.”
Carparelli will be Under Armour’s senior director of college sports, so perhaps more Under Armour apparel deals will be coming to the American in the coming years.
