How Greg Sankey’s leadership best positions SEC, OU for ever changing future

DALLAS — For one of the most powerful people in collegiate athletics, the beauty of going for a run, even with an Apple Watch strapped to his wrist measuring his progress, is getting lost in the wonder of new cities he's visited.

In the early morning of July 1, Greg Sankey ’s planned 3-and-a-half mile jog around the University of Oklahoma’s campus turned into a 4-and-a-half mile adventure due to his admiration of the Southeastern Conference’s latest addition . The SEC commissioner of nine years, a past avid marathon runner, was getting in a workout before a day that would kick off with a welcome press conference and end with a late-night celebration in a tuxedo on Owen Field.

While he hadn’t visited the college grounds before initial in-person meetings with officials in December 2021, Sankey was familiar with the area.

His sister-in-law lived south of Oklahoma City in the 1990s. His father's stepfather, who he calls his grandfather, was raised in eastern Oklahoma town Chouteau and was a proud member of the Pipeliners Local Union 978 out of Tulsa. Sankey made the trek from his native upstate New York to Chouteau as a 5-year-old in 1969 to visit his grandfather, an avid New York Yankees fan, though not because the Sankeys lived in New York, but for Mickey Mantle.

Mantle retired one year before Sankey’s visit, capping a career as one of baseball’s greatest for a team that was a blueblood of its sport. Mantle carried the same working class ethic throughout his playing days that was central to OU football’s mantra throughout the next decade under Barry Switzer.

“That meaning is not lost on me personally today,” Sankey said, sitting between university president Joseph Harroz Jr. and athletic director Joe Castiglione, a few hours after his prolonged lope.

Sixteen days later at SEC Media Days in Dallas, one of the most forward-thinking and historic moves in the history of college sports became even more real. Not unlike in 1969 when Mantle retired and Major League Baseball added Kansas City, Montreal, San Diego and Seattle as expansion teams, Sankey leads college football’s marquee conference at a time when the sport holds a place in America's collective consciousness like baseball when he visited Oklahoma as a child.

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Sankey officially introduced OU to the rest of the conference’s orbit. Talking season had begun and the biggest names in the conference like Paul Finebaum and even Nick Saban, who has joined the media ranks as an ESPN analyst, weighed in on their perceptions of the new member.

Though this is the inaugural season for the Sooners, for Sankey it’s almost like they’re entering Year 4. Harroz, Castiglione and head coach Brent Venables have attended SEC meetings for the past year. The league’s expectations have been thoroughly communicated since the realignment announcement.

“From a competitive standpoint, they've had three years to prepare,” Sankey told The Oklahoman during a sit-down interview in a side office overlooking downtown Dallas’ skyline away from the chaos of SEC Media Days, “and our 14 and our 16 together have all been prepared for travel and for the competitive experiences.”

During the interview, Sankey discussed various topics regarding collegiate athletics including potential revenue-sharing, name, image and likeness collectives, OU’s proposed new arena, and how the school has been perceived by other members.

Media days in Dallas was an intentional location selected as the conference expands its geographical footprint and the fourth different location in four years for an event that used to be a mainstay in Birmingham, Alabama. It signaled Sankey’s one-year vision for the new members' integration.

He sees the next five-year stage as perfecting how the league handles scheduling. OU has the fourth-toughest schedule nationally in 2024, according to College Football Network. The Sooners will play the same conference opponents in 2025 with road games against Alabama and Tennessee. The scheduling format for 2026 and beyond has yet to be finalized and Sankey says the league needs to evaluate its approaches in other sports as well.

Castiglione has been the bastion of tradition throughout his tenure in Norman and Sankey is cut from the same cloth. The two leaders have been proactive when change arises without reinventing the model, and Sankey, like he tracks his time on a run, has a 10-year plan for conference evolution.

Sankey is about to enter his 10th year on the job and when asked where he sees the league in the next decade, he returned to the office’s statement, meeting the SEC “standard of excellence,” echoing a similar tone as Castiglione. When Sankey interviewed for his current position, he was asked the same question.

“If we expect our teams to win national championships, we have to perform at that level,” Sankey said. “And we're not going to win national championships as a conference office staff but the parallels of doing things so well are there. And so that becomes a much greater focus.

“You've done the work on a year-to-year basis with specific direct goals and you look at the longer term with maybe broader statements that in 10 years put you in a position to be in a continuing leadership role. Attracting interest from across the globe would be our hope in the long term.”That sentiment is part of what fuels such fanfare about the conference change in Norman.

Not long after becoming OU’s president in 2020, Harroz took a deep dive into the future of college athletics and came to two conclusions. The first was that OU must compete for national championships on a regular basis across all sports and the second was maintaining an athletic department that isn’t subsidized.

If the Sooners didn’t make the move to the SEC, Harroz said subsidization would’ve been a reality as early as 2027.

“The move for us was thoughtful and strategic and we recognized the reality of intercollegiate athletics and where it is,” Harroz said. “And so we stand at this moment, it’s very exciting. And we love the tag line for the SEC, ‘It just means more.’ What does that mean for us? It means the progress we've made as a university over the last several years can continue on an even bigger stage.”

Greg Sankey Q&A: How SEC is approaching college athletics' future

‘We have to acknowledge the changes taking place’

With more than $15 billion in new cash expected to funnel to athletes over a 10 year period and after the NCAA and power conferences vote to settle three antitrust cases, college athletics will look more and more like the NFL.

The NCAA and power conferences approved nearly $2.8 billion in back damages in May. And a future athlete revenue-sharing model could see SEC football teams pay its football players around $15 million per year, according to a report from Yahoo Sports. Sankey said he’s meeting biweekly with SEC presidents and athletic directors regarding the scenarios that could arise from the House settlement.

OU's Board of Regents outlined the financial impacts of the Sooners’ move from the Big 12 to the SEC in June, which included $20 million in shifting conference distribution. For the 2024 fiscal year, OU budgeted $117 million in athletic revenue. For the 2025 fiscal year proposed budget, OU budgeted $106 million in athletic revenue.

Texas A&M’s athletic department laid off a dozen staffers in April, including several high-ranking administrators, due to what new athletic director Trev Alberts called “emerging threats to our business model.” Alabama athletic director Greg Byrne said the program was “going to have to make some challenging decisions” due to the House litigation. During his July 1 press conference, Joe Castiglione said he is constantly focused on the change and that the Sooners “have to find new ways to generate revenue.”

Questions have arisen regarding how non-revenue sports will be affected. OU softball won its fourth consecutive national title in 2024 and OU women’s gymnastics has won three national championships in six years.

Sankey made clear his stance on private equity to Yahoo Sports, and believes the SEC can make its own decisions and shouldn’t cede that authority for lucrative offers. Athletic department budgets are on Sankey’s mind and he aims to maintain as much of the conference’s current athletic structure as possible moving forward.

“We've had conversations among our presidents, chancellors and athletic directors about the importance from the campus perspective of maintaining the breadth of sports that we do," Sankey said. "And so I don't go right to, ‘OK, here's a direct outcome.’

“Instead, I think you're seeing the preparation for change that is focused on that objective remaining, which is we want the breadth that we’re offering so we can provide opportunities as we have, but we have to acknowledge the changes taking place.”

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The Sooners have acted as swiftly as any program nationally in response to the changing landscape, positioning themselves at the forefront of roster building with their new 1Oklahoma collective and recent recruiting staff restructure.

The program is partnering with former Philadelphia Eagles vice president of football administration Jake Rosenberg, one of Eagles general manager Howie Roseman’s closest advisers, who will provide counsel and support. The Sooners also made the news of Curtis Lofton's promotion to general manager and the hiring of Chuck Lillie as assistant general manager official.

Sankey thinks the roles of NIL collectives and general managers will continue to evolve.

The landscape is changing fast, collectives could look different a year from now. An employee model could be down the line, though Sankey argues athletes he talks to don’t want that.

“The NCAA is theologically opposed to employment, but I don't think that they're practically opposed to all of the costs and benefits of employment, just the word,” Andy Schwarz, a California-based economist, specializing in sports economics, said. “So you'll have people maybe sign an NIL services agreement, where as a condition to provide those NIL services, they have to be playing quarterback for your university, or starting a number of games.

“That'll solve some of the things that people are complaining about now, which is annual free agency, that coaches are constantly having to re-recruit their own players to keep them from transferring. You'll sign two year deals, or you'll sign a four year deal."

Today, coaches are trying to stay ahead of the curve on and increasingly off the field.

“Talking to football coaches here, it is a step in the process,” Sankey said. “I think there's a point of differentiation between the emergence of collectives under the patchwork of state laws that we have and then the adjustment of those state laws to limit regulation, which has opened up that opportunity, but also settlement that would drive more of those economic opportunities through athletic programs.

“And I think that's what you've seen on some occasions, people preparing internally. How do we have a staff who is attuned to managing that? That seems a relevant adaptation.”

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‘High level of success’

During a visit to Norman in late January, Castiglione drove Sankey by the location of the proposed University North Park entertainment district.

The university has spent the past few months campaigning for the district, which would house a new $330 million arena for OU basketball and women’s gymnastics. The proposed district would be divided into two tax increment financing districts pending Norman City Council’s approval.

“I'm not an expert,” Sankey said. “But with what has been shared with me, I think it's an exciting opportunity for the community. I think it's been effectively presented. … You've seen those wise partnerships happen and I think that opportunity as I understand it is here for that entertainment district.”

Sankey sees parallels to when he lived in Dallas for 11 years and watched the evolution of the city of Arlington with new Dallas Cowboys and Texas Rangers stadiums, as well as an entertainment district.

The future of athletic facilities will also undoubtedly have to be evaluated moving forward. In 2022, the OU Board of Regents approved a $175 million football facility project.

Nearly two years later, the concept appears on the backburner.

“Ten years from now, 15 years from now, the lavishness of facilities and the pay that goes out to coaches will be diminished,” Schwarz, the economist, said. “And that money will have shifted towards players.”

In addition to the impending arena vote, the program is aiming to improve its gameday experience as it enters the SEC. OU’s leaders are preparing for the program’s Week 1 matchup with Temple, slated for Friday, Aug. 30, the Sooners’ first “Friday Night Lights” contest .

OU’s Norman campus already suspended academic and campus operations that day to accommodate traffic, parking and safety measures on gameday. That’s also when the program will debut its public tailgating across campus at Boyd Lawn, along Asp Avenue and near the Oklahoma Memorial Union.

“It does create some challenges because it is during a work day and during a weekday,” OU executive associate athletic director for external engagement Leah Beasley said. “We have been working with the city and with the university leadership on what that looks like. How are we making sure that certain things stay in place and that we're still allowing our fans the ease of coming to town, coming to the stadium?”

College football games on Friday nights have become common over the years. Fridays were historically reserved for high school football, while college football gets Saturdays and the NFL rules Sundays.

However, the NFL and several college leagues have begun dipping into different days of the week, with the only nights without a power conference game this season being Tuesday and Wednesday. Sankey can count on one hand the amount of Friday night SEC games that have occurred during his tenure and outside of Black Friday. It’s not an objective of his.

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It was important to him that OU engage in discussions with the Oklahoma Secondary School Activities Association before finalizing plans for the Friday game.

“Keeping in mind, Thursday used to be the domain of colleges, now the NFL has moved in,” Sankey said. “That Friday after Thanksgiving used to be the domain of colleges, now there's an NFL game played there. Those kinds of tensions that have existed across the board and we've seen a lot of conferences, I think pretty much all but us, use Friday as a new core scheduling approach.

“I think it's been well managed and appropriately communicated, but again, it's not the focus.”

While the over 40 stations occupying radio row at SEC Media Days and pundits across the conference have differing opinions on how OU’s season will go, the high esteem for the program was felt throughout the event. Former Sooner legends and classic games were brought up.

One thing was clear to Sankey: OU’s long history of success and its football pageantry won’t have trouble fitting in. His recent campus visit taught him that, in addition to how hot it is in a tux in Norman on a football field in early July.

“There's been a high level of respect,” Sankey said. “We've competed in any number of situations, whether it's football games and in the postseason, including in the College Football Playoff. Those types of competitive experiences generate respect and familiarity is one (aspect). The second is a recognition of the leadership and obviously, Joe Castiglione has been there a long time.

“Some of our athletic directors have worked with Joe over a period of time so there's that level of respect generated personally, but admiring the long arc of his career and the success built at Oklahoma. There was high regard for the university, we’ve had other points of outreach, but we got two.

“We got the University of Oklahoma and University of Texas, and I think that speaks volumes about the positive perception contest.”

Castiglione and Venables have both used the terms “running into the SEC” in recent weeks.

Sankey hasn’t run a full marathon since he injured his Achilles a decade ago, but has learned to adapt, similarly to how his job has evolved. He’s zeroed in on the future of his 16-member league and the university’s leaders have full confidence Sankey is the right leader and the SEC is the right conference for a stable future.

After all, Sankey has made a career out of being one of the best in the business at playing the long game.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: How Greg Sankey’s leadership best positions SEC, OU for ever changing future