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Maryland Will Play First Game At Byrd
Stadium Since $50.8M Expansion Saturday |
The Univ. of Maryland (UM) Saturday will host James Madison Univ. in the first football game at Byrd Stadium since its $50.8M expansion, but "initial sales on the stadium's new premium seating options will not spawn the revenue Maryland once anticipated," according to Steve Yanda of the WASHINGTON POST. UM officials insist that the new 64 luxury suites and 440 mezzanine seats added to the stadium will "produce enough funds to pay off the project's" $2.4M annual debt requirement, spread over 20 years. However, they have been "able to secure long-term commitments for only two-thirds of the luxury suites and mezzanine seats." UM AD Debbie Yow said, "When we structured the financial plan for this, the original idea was that the suite rentals were paying the debt service annually on the facility, along with the money we got from the naming rights to the field, and that what would be gravy would be all the sales of the mezzanine seats. But the way it is now because of the recession, it's really a good thing that we built out the mezzanine seats because now those funds, instead of coming back as extra money, as gravy, will now be used to make the debt service payments so we stay whole." UM Senior AD/External Operations Brian Ullmann said that "long-term leases have been signed on 41 suites" to date, falling "seven short of the number needed to pay off the annual debt requirement." Ullmann noted that the school has sold 357 of the stadium's 539 total mezzanine seats. UM has made several "adjustments in recent months in attempts to make suites, as well as season tickets, more financially appealing to its fan base," including offering annual and single-game leases, as opposed to the original three-, five- and seven-year options" (
WASHINGTON POST, 9/11). UM earlier this week announced that Capital One has assumed the naming-rights agreement to Byrd Stadium after acquiring Chevy Chase Bank, which signed a $20M deal with the school in '06. Ullmann said that it was unclear when the signs for the stadium on I-95 "would be changed and how much the alterations would cost." He noted that UM "would offer to assume the cost" (
WASHINGTON POST, 9/11).
GETTING BIGGER IN TEXAS: In San Antonio, Jerry Briggs reports the Univ. of Texas-San Antonio (UTSA) has hired HKS and Overland Park Architects to "design and engineer" the first phase of the schools' new athletics complex. The work calls for plans for new soccer and track & field stadiums, as well as "initial utilities, road and parking infrastructure." UTSA said that it should take "nine-to-12 months for planning and approval and that the construction on the stadiums would begin 'soon after the plans are approved'" (SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS-NEWS, 9/11).
