'Your name here' stadium
UC Davis seeks private donations to finance new sports complex

A $29.75 million stadium complex planned at UC Davis will seat 11,000 after completion of the first phase of construction. The football and lacrosse field will replace the aging Toomey Field two miles away. 
Ellerbe Becket Inc.

Never mind that the site is just dirt - a massive dirt hole surrounded by fields of dirt, interrupted only by wooden stakes speared into the ground as construction markers. The athletic director marshaling the biggest event in Aggies sports beams.

"Look at this," Warzecka says in prideful tone.

Most prominently, the name of the stadium is for sale. The asking price is $10 million.

The names of several entrances are for sale, at various rates. The name of the band section is for sale. The training room, the gate to the main entrance, the bricks in the entry plaza, the press box. For sale.

The price list has 25 categories in all, from that someone who has the $10 mil in disposable income down to $1,000 to name a general admission seat.

A picnic area on the south side of the stadium, anyone? Your name here, for $500,000.

Some areas need only money, not names. It has already been decided, for example, that the field will bear the name of Jim Sochor, the football coach from 1970 to 1988, and that the locker-room building will honor Bob Foster, the football coach from 1989 to 1992, and now it is a matter of raising the combined $2.5 million.

In Phase I of construction alone - the 11,000-seat, $29.75 million stadium that is expected to open next football season - a price list shows UCD is hoping to generate $19.66 million in naming opportunities, with an undetermined amount beyond that depending on the number of seats and even the number of bricks bearing donors' names.

Phase II may not expand seating capacity much, but might include two lighted practice fields, a strength and conditioning center, and a new headquarters for the athletic department. That name can be bought for $5 million.

Only small donations have come in so far, school officials said, small donations being a relative term considering some commitments have been for six figures.

Warzecka said about $4 million has been raised so far, against the $6 million that was budgeted as "gift funds" in the accounting approved in January as part of the projected cost of phase I.

Whatever comes in beyond the necessary $6 million will be held over for later construction in a project that could expand to 30,000 seats.

"For the athletic department as a whole, it's huge," said Mike Angius, the assistant athletic director in charge of development and a point man on the project. "It's huge for the basketball program, it's huge for the water polo program, it's huge for the lacrosse and baseball and tennis programs. The soccer program knows it is huge. Everyone is banking on us being successful."

Or else it will be a financial opportunity missed.

UCD was close to lining up a corporate partner, he said, before a change in the company hierarchy meant a change in thinking, so talks broke off. That was followed by an individual who entered negotiations to put his family name on the building, but those talks faded and then started again and are somewhere in the vicinity of inconclusive and tight-lipped.

School officials won't name either potential partner, but most university officials have a clear preference for the Aggies to land a private donation for the naming rights. Corporate sponsors want something in return, which turns negotiations very complicated very quickly. The fast-food chain will want burger distribution rights for the entire campus or the overnight-delivery company will want the packaging rights for all the departments or the bank will want ATMs placed around UCD, and that gets into contracts already in place.

Individuals or families will more often make this kind of uber-donation with few strings attached because of a personal connection with the school, because they attended or live in the area.

It may lead to positive publicity for a business, but the donation itself comes with little or no obligation.

"We need to get this stadium named," Angius said. "There is someone out there who has a passion for the student-athlete process at this university. There is someone out there who has a love for this university and a philanthropic standing."

Said Warzecka: "It has to be someone who has a passion for the university and believes in our mission."

Not a corporation, in other words, a common occurrence in a UCD world (student population about 30,000) that already includes the Schaal Aquatics Center and the Dobbins Baseball Complex, two facilities that came as part of private donations.

And basketball, volleyball, wrestling and gymnastics compete in a building without personal name recognition of any kind, The Pavilion.

That the UCD construction comes at a time when corporate resources in the Sacramento area appear thin makes the leaning toward private donations all the more relevant. The Aggies would otherwise be jousting with the Kings' hopes for a new arena that will depend in part on financing from the business community, whether in critical income from naming rights or from commitment to luxury suites. By hoping to go its own route, the school would steer clear of having to contend with the monolithic sports entity in town.

Besides, UCD is going for the big time either way. When completed, Fill In The Blank Stadium will be the first major sports venue to open in the Sacramento market since Raley Field in May 2000 to greet the arrival of River Cats baseball.

That in itself makes the hoped-for September 2006 inauguration at the intersection of Hutchison Drive and LaRue Road in Davis eventful, by any name.

There had been talk of a new stadium for decades, with outdated Toomey Field weathered by the years and looking more like a high school stadium. A string of successful teams has called it home since 1949.

Two miles away from that venerable stadium, Warzecka stands at the southeast corner of the lot.

The area will become the student entrance gate - and is for sale at $250,000. The athletic director looks at all that dirt.

"I see," Warzecka said, "a finished stadium."

Naming rights for sale

$10 million
STADIUM NAME

$1 million
MAIN ENTRANCE GATE

$100,000
TRAINING ROOM

$250,000
BAND SECTION

$1,000
GENERAL ADMISSION SEAT