ASU AD Patterson: Pac-12 spring meetings agenda
May 1, 2012, 11:16 PM | Updated: May 2, 2012, 12:36 am
Arizona State athletic director Steve Patterson will have his first opportunity to acquaint himself with his Pac-12 counterparts.
The Pac-12 spring meetings will be taking place in Phoenix, AZ over the coming days and Patterson envisions a plethora of topics will be on the table for discussion.
The spring meetings the past two years produced some of the biggest news in college sports and while this year’s sessions don’t figure to be the launching pad for any significant developments, the issue of scheduling is sure to be at the forefront of the discussions.
“There’s going to be a lot of talk about scheduling, potential games with the Big Ten, talk about television and scheduling, times of games, recommendations on rules,” Patterson explained. “There’s going to be a lot of talk about APR, graduation rates. So, those will be some of the topics we’ll be talking about over the next couple of days.”
The status of the Pac-12 television network and its progress should also be addressed.
While Patterson and his rival Pac-12 athletic directors are all striving to produce the best program in the conference, it’s critical to work collectively to iron out the hot button topics.
“There are all kinds of issues that we could be working on together whether it’s scheduling or T.V. or radio or media or any of these kinds of issues,” Patterson said. “Certainly personnel issues, student athlete issues, you want to have that relationship.”
Patterson doesn’t feel competition or personal agendas will deter the task at hand and that’s coming together for the greater good of the conference.
“The reality is we’re all in significant businesses,” Patterson stated. “We have to work together. When we are on the field or the floor we want to win, but we got to grow our businesses and serve our student athletes and serve our other constituents as best we can in each of the marketplaces we operate in.”