ESPN Wildhack career at
ESPN spanned 36 years, in which he held a number of leadership roles. He started at ESPN in 1980 as a production assistant and steadily rose through the ranks to become the executive vice president for programming and production in 2014. He was responsible for several firsts at the network, including producing ESPN's first live regular-season college football game in September 1984 (
BYUPitt) and its first live NFL game in
August 1987. Wildhack was an honoree at the "Newhouse at 40" Gala in 2005. He replaced
Mark Coyle, who had spent only 11 months with the
Orange before leaving for the same job at
University of Minnesota. He had no prior experience in athletic administration, but his experience in the sport business industry and his connections with Syracuse University made him a preferred candidate for the job. At Syracuse, he is responsible for leading the daily operations of a 20-sport athletics department with more than 600 student-athletes. During Wildhack's four-year tenure (), Syracuse athletes competed in 39 NCAA national championship events (42 total), won 23 conference championships (four team, 19 individual), and two national championships. It reopened in fall 2020. Off the field, he helped launch an in-house production unit in 2017 that has broadcast 301 live events and generated nearly 1,000 hours of content on the ACC Network and the conference's digital platform, ACC Network Extra. Multiple teams registered perfect Academic Progress Report scores and in 2018 the university's four-year average of 987 was the highest since tracking began. In August 2020, SU extended his contract through 2025. In September 2020, he donated $1 million to SU athletics. He is a member on the advisory board for the
David B. Falk College of Sport and Human Dynamics at
Syracuse University. Wildhack retired on July 1, 2026, concluding 10 years as the AD at Syracuse. He was succeeded by
Bryan Blair. In 2025, Wildhack was appointed to NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Committee for a 5-year term. ==Personal life==