Joe Castiglione and the University of Oklahoma are changing the way the Sooners do business.
Castiglione on Tuesday announced that Randall Stephenson, a former chairman and CEO at AT&T and a long-time supporter of OU athletics, has been engaged by the school to take over a newly created position Castiglione calls Executive Advisor to the President and Athletic Director.
In an email Castiglione sent to the fan base, he said Stephenson “has refused compensation” for the new role and “will help guide us into restructuring our budget for this new world of college sports and into developing a football structure with elements similar to professional sports teams.
“This includes building out a more expansive Generan Manager function and developing a dynamic model that will allow OU Football to become a national gold standard around talent acquisition, portal management and player development.”
This is part of OU’s ongoing response to the continuing evolution of college football, which will soon include a revenue sharing model with the student-athletes that is expected so compensate them beginning at around $20-22 million a year — Castilgione said in the email the “baseline total” would be approximately $20.5 million — all from the university.
Now, more than ever, we are focused on how we can adapt to the current envrionment in ways that enables us to win at the highest level in all our programs.
“College athletics remains unique, but adaptations that draw upon the professional model are necessary to compete at the highest level,” Castiglione said in the email.
OU’s football General Manager is former Sooners linebacker Curtis Lofton, who moved from co-director of Brent Venables’ SOUL Mission to GM last year. Stephenson is expected to work closely with that position.
Stephenson has extensive experience in the realm of sports business. He served on the policy board for the PGA Tour from 2012-23, focusing on the operational challenges of the tour.
Helming AT&T from 2007-20, he shepherded “the Fourtune Five company through tectonic changes in multiple sectors,” Castiglione said in the email.
Among his company’s innovations in sports programming, media rights and sponsorships, AT&T pioneered NFL Sunday Ticket on DirecTV, the NFL Red Zone, as well as the NBA on TNT, MLB Playoffs and NCAA March Madness on Turner Networks. Under Stephenson, AT&T was a co-sponsor of the College Football Playoff, AT&T Stadium, and golfers Jordan Spieth, Tiger Woods and others.
