Football

UH looking for $15 million naming rights deal

Although UH is just seven months from the expected opening date of its $100 million-plus project, one important detail is still not settled — what the new football stadium will be called.

Athletics director Mack Rhoades said UH is further “down the road” with one suitor, while still looking into “several” other interested companies. Rhoades didn’t give a timeline for completion.

Rhoades said he is looking for a 10-year deal worth about $15 million.

“That makes sense for everybody involved,” he said. “Once the 10 years is over we have the opportunity to renew or go out and sell the naming rights to someone else.”

Rhoades said he is confident that a naming-rights deal will occur.

“We’re all working hard at it. Naming rights, that process takes a long time because there are so many pieces to that puzzle,” Rhoades said.

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8 Comments

      • Are you joking? Money that could be used for academics is used for sports. When UH needs money for academics they get it from taxpayers. Wrong priorities. Its like a child who buys candy with the money he makes from washing cars. He wouldn’t have that money if he had to pay rent, food and utilities like a grown-up. Universities also have many ways of allocating taxpayer money for things by making them “dual purpose” or “mixed use”

        P.S. Its not nice to make fun of the mentally retarded with those types of slurs.

      • UH is supposedly using increased student fees. How many students are receiving taxpayer help for their education? It seems as if UH students could fund-raise for their fellow students needing assistance in paying for tuition. Instead of using their money wisely to be less of a burden on taxpayers, they are willing to shell out money for a stupid $119 million stadium. UH doesn’t even have a medical school. Why is it easier to collect money for sports instead of for academics? Simple. Its beneficial the same way the Roman elite distracted the public with the gladiator games.

        “According to the National Center for Educational Statistics, more
        than half of public universities’ revenues — $79 billion — were
        extracted directly from federal, state, and local taxpayers, while only
        18.5 percent came from student fees and tuition. The bill for private
        schools was smaller, but still mammoth: 16.4 percent of private
        colleges’ revenues — $12 billion — came directly from taxpayers, with
        tuition and fees providing 43 percent.

        Of course, tuition, too, is covered largely by taxpayers. “Almost 60
        percent of undergraduates receive some form of financial aid to help
        them pay for college,” explains a new report from the College Board, a
        national, non-profit schools association. “While a significant amount of
        this aid is in the form of loans, frequently subsidized by the federal
        government, over $40 billion of grant aid was distributed to college
        students by federal and state governments and by colleges and
        universities” last year.”
        http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/taxpayers-carry-college-cost-load

  • Here’s why the stadium and athletics are so important:

    1. Money
    A winning football team generates alumni giving. When Case was here winning, our alumni giving rates sky rocketed. What’s even worse, we wouldn’t pony up the can to keep Sumlin, he goes to A&M, they beat Bama. What happens? They TRIPLED their alumni giving that year from $250m to $750m. Where do you think that HALF-BILLION dollars goes? Not to Athletics! To students, research, buildings, recruitment of better professors, scholarships, etc. UH could use and extra $500m right now.

    2. Student Success
    There is a direct correlation between the success of a university’s football team and graduation rates, ability to recruit higher quality students, SAT scores, etc. The quality of our student admitted to UH has increased leaps and bounds over the last 5 years. Why? Because students actually want to go to UH now and we were able to increase our admissions standards. Was it all football? No, but it played an important role.

    Athletics is how you bring together and keep a community together. It is the only way to keep alumni engaged at UH. Athletics has the greatest impact on fostering a love for the university. And that leads to alumni financially supporting UH and consequently keeping tuition and fees lower.

    The best thing we could do for UH’s success is double our abysmal $33m Athletics budget, so they can actually compete with the other universities of our size. What sense does it make to spend $120m on a stadium when we’re not spending the money to hire the coaches that can field nationally competitive teams or pay for the marketing that will get alumni’s butts in seats?

    • Most universities lose money on Athletics. It causes tuition to be higher, not lower. If students are going to a university because of how well the football team is performing, then that shows how stupid the prospective students are. Anyone paying for their education should look at the level of education they are getting for the price they’re paying. Its sad that sports are the “only” way to engage the alumni at UH. Like the other poster said, UH doesn’t even have a medical school. I’d rather have another medical school in our wonderful medically-oriented city than an expensive stadium for illiterate football players to run around and tackle each-other.

      • It could also be because the alumni connection for the overall university is woefully inadequate. Most alums only know about hounding calls for donations, rather than the young alumni programs (Frontier Fiesta-related, for instance) or UHAA (and the parking permit that comes with membership).

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