OU athletic director Roger Denny sat down with OU Daily editors Thursday morning in the Switzer Center Lobby to discuss name, image and likeness deals, football stadium renovations and the University North Park entertainment district.
Handling NIL deals
Denny officially joined OU on Feb. 15 after serving as the deputy athletic director at the University of Illinois for almost five years.
Denny spent 15 years practicing law before stepping into athletics in 2021, and he feels confident in his experience to help the Sooners keep up with NIL.
He was an attorney at the St. Louis office of law firm Spencer Fane LLP from 2015 to 2021, where he worked as a partner with an industry focus on sports businesses. He advised clients on transactional matters, including mergers and acquisitions, executive compensation and taxation, private equity and corporate finance.
Although NIL deals were introduced in college sports in 2021, Denny feels that he had a head start on dealing with related transactions.
“I’ve been writing the words name, image, likeness in contracts for 20 years now,” Denny said. “I did a lot of work for professional athletes and sporting goods companies and media companies and things like that. A lot of those engagements were around licensed transactions that involve athlete and entertainer name, image and likeness.
“Even though that’s a somewhat new concept now (and) almost five years old in college sports, that’s not new in (the) sports and entertainment space, so I’ve got a lot of experience.”
Helping with the business aspect, football general manager Jim Nagy has been on staff since February 2025 to “lead roster building, player evaluation, recruiting and compensation.” Before OU, Nagy was the executive director of the Senior Bowl, the country’s most prestigious college all-star game that features draft-eligible football players, beginning in 2018. He also spent 18 years in scouting roles in NFL front offices.
Denny said that he feels impressed with the athletic department’s structure with Nagy heavily involved.
“The setup that we’ve got is really impressive, …” Denny said. “With Jim Nagy, in particular, his hiring and the way that he’s been empowered to run that operation is indicative of who we are and who we want to be as a program, and that’s really staying ahead of the curve on this.”
Denny emphasized that the football program under Nagy aligns with how NFL front offices are built and operated to manage finances and process talent.
“You hear it a lot — we are the first real pro-style front office,” Denny said. “I’ve seen it over there. I’ve enjoyed getting to know Jim and understanding his philosophy of how he builds a roster, how he communicates with the coaches and how they evaluate and work together to make sure that the kids we’re bringing into that locker room (are) really high-level players at good values.”
Football stadium renovations
Denny also spoke on the The Palace Project, which will “strategically” decrease seating on the west side of Gaylord Family-Oklahoma Memorial Stadium by approximately 7,000.
The project also includes “the construction of 47 suites, 64 loge boxes with seating to accommodate approximately 280 guests, and approximately 4,000 new club seats.”
It is expected to begin in 2027 and be completed by 2029.
Denny said that he had his first introduction to the project last Friday and values enhancing fan experience. He added that, in Illinois, efforts were centered more around bathrooms and concessions.
“In terms of The Palace Project, I’m still getting to know it a little bit, …” Denny said. “But I think the theme that you see with that project is really a theme of upping the ante on fan experience.”
According to Denny, improving fan experience at every level of athletics does not start and end with one project. Instead, it involves a continuous effort to consider processes to make changes, while bigger projects are underway.
“I believe that’s something we do every year,” Denny said. “That’s not an every-decade or two-decades thing, so even while that project is going on, we will find ways to continue to elevate fan experience throughout this stadium and every other one of our facilities. It’s just right now, the competition for fans, and affinity, is too tough for us to sit on our hands and wait for big projects. We could always be elevating that experience anywhere where we’re inviting our folks.”
University North Park entertainment district
Denny spoke in support of the planned entertainment district, which will be located in the University North Park area adjacent to Interstate 35 and Rock Creek Road.
The entertainment district, which is expected to be completed in 2032, would include a new arena for OU women’s and men’s basketball and women’s gymnastics, along with surrounding restaurants and housing.
“The arena is an incredibly exciting project,” Denny said. “It’s yet another example of Oklahoma staying ahead of the curve.”
During Denny’s time with Spencer Fane, he represented the bond issuers for Ballpark Village, a mixed-use district around Busch Stadium, ballpark of the MLB’s St. Louis Cardinals. According to Denny, the Ballpark Village project took nearly seven years and required endurance, which he keeps in mind as he transitions to Norman.
“You have to stay in it,” Denny said at his introductory press conference on Jan. 28. “Big projects like that aren’t easy, and a lot of them fall apart just because of the fatigue that comes with them. And the real work that goes into it is keeping the folks engaged, so that as that fatigue sets in, no one ever loses sight of all the reasons on the front end we said that (were) so important. …
“That’s what we’ll look to do (with University North Park).”
Denny added that, in professional sports, districts like these have been around for over a decade but are a recent addition to the collegiate level.
“If you look in professional sports, you’ve seen these sports anchored multi-use districts all over, …” Denny said. “It really wasn’t until very recently that you saw college athletics programs start to evaluate these multi-use districts. … (I think that) will give us yet another competitive advantage in the next turn of our business.”
Willie Gillespie contributed to the reporting of this story.
This story was edited by Anusha Fathepure. Andrew Higgins and Gretchen Schultz copy edited this story.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.oudaily.com ’
