John Wildhack appointed to NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Committee

Indianapolis – Athletics Director Syracus John Wildhack has been appointed to the NCAA Division I. Wildhack, a Bubba Cunningham in North Carolina as a representative of the Atlantic Coast Conference in the Committee.

Wildhack was in his current role in Syracuses for nearly nine years, and in 2016 he returned to his Alma Mater after a successful career in ESPN, which lasted more than three decades. Buffalo, New York, a native won a title in the field of communication from Syracuse’s Newhouse School of Public Communications and immediately began to work as a manufacturing assistant for ESPN in 1980. Among the sports he worked on were university basketball and football, box, golf and automatic plants. In 1988 and 1989 he worked as a coordination producer for “Sunday Night Football” and NFL draft broadcasting and in 1987-89 produced NFL games for NFL network games on the cable.

Wildhack’s managerial role in the company began in 1990 when he was appointed director of Event Productions. In 1991 he was promoted to the vice president for remote production, the position he held until 1993 when he became a senior vice president for distant production. In September 1994 he moved to the programming department as a senior vice president for programming and in 2005 he became a senior vice president for acquisitions and strategy of programming. Wildhack was directly involved in the renewal and expansion of many ESPN and ESPN2 programming agreements for NFL, MLB, NBA, Bowl Championship Series, NCAA, NCAA, Four Tennis Grand Slam. His efforts were an integral part of the increase in living and original programming on ESPN and ESPN2. The ESPN2 programming set included an extensive commitment to automatic racing, basketball and football, which has led to ESPN2 to become the fastest growing network of 90 years.

From 2007 to 2012, Wildhack was an ESPN executive vice president for programming and acquisition. In this role, he supervised all rights on rights and managed relations with rights to all ESPN entities. Before returning to Syracus, Wildhack acted as a powerful vice president of the network for programming and production.

“It is the privilege to represent the Syracus University and the Atlantic Coast Conference on the NCAA Division I Basketball Committee,” Wildhack said. “I am a grateful Commissioner (Jim) Phillips for nominating me. The NCAA tournament is one of the big sports events in the world. I look forward to and honor with (Senior vice president of NCAA) Dan Gavitt, NCAA employees and members of my fellow citizen.”

Wildhack is the third director of Syracuse athletics, who serves in the committee and joins Lew Andreas (1954-59) and Jake Coruthamel (1991-96). The Commissioner of the Sun Belt Conference, as well as Greg Byrne of Alabama, Mark Coyle from Minnesota, Irma Garcia of Manhattan, Stu Jackson from the West Coast, Artlah of Okšan of Geibener, Chad Weorge State State, Stad of Beberg of the Beberg of the Beberg of the Beberg of the Beberg of the Ling. and Tom Wistrcill from the Big Sky conference.