Aztecs Making Money With Signs of the Times
Those who attended San Diego State’s home football opener three weeks ago were greeted with something more than the usual 40,000 empty seats at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium.
What they saw on the field, besides the Aztecs’ first victory over Air Force in eight years, was an advertising display unlike anything in college athletics today.
Free-standing billboards lined the field on both sidelines, stretching from end zone to end zone with only a break for team benches on each side. They touted everything from rental cars to hospital care to beer to greyhounds, and we’re not talking about buses.
While American fans are accustomed to seeing some advertising in stadiums, this display gave the stadium the look of a European soccer stadium. It was the clearest evidence of the Aztecs’ new corporate sponsorship program--a plan university officials say will raise $800,000 in cash and services in its first year.
It is the latest and one of the most inventive fund-raising efforts mounted by the financially pinched athletic department as it struggles to come out from under a long-standing debt that is now $332,000. While the Aztecs continue to fail at attracting enough paying customers at the gate, the corporate sponsorship program has tapped one of the last sources for new funds.
“There are only two new ways left to raise revenue for college athletics--a national football playoff and corporate sponsorship,” SDSU athletic director Fred Miller said. “While everyone argues the merits of a football playoff, we’re going ahead with our sponsorship program.”
To Miller, the billboards are the look of the future. To others, they represent distasteful means to keep a financially marginal athletic program afloat.
“I find it offensive,” said Nick Genovese, chairman of the SDSU university senate and a professor of classics. “I don’t like the idea of turning college athletics into an exchange of money for obvious commercial purposes.”
Satisfying the concerns raised by Genovese is not the only problem Miller faces. Less than one month into its first season, the corporate sponsorship plan, which promises companies stadium advertising and other promotional activities in exchange for fees ranging up to $75,000 a year, is off to a controversial start.
The program quickly has embroiled the Aztecs in a dispute with the Padres over their right to display billboards in the stadium. Meetings with Padre and city officials over the past several weeks have failed to find a solution, and school officials are approaching Saturday’s second home game against Oregon unsure if they will be permitted to use their signboards.
The Aztecs have reached a new frontier of athletic department fund-raising, and with it has come a whole new set of questions, particularly concerning what type of company a university will allow to become associated with its athletic department.
The Aztecs already have faced a tough decision in this area involving their relationship with Caliente Race Track, a Tijuana pari-mutuel wagering facility that has thoroughbred horse, greyhound and off-track betting. Caliente has agreed to pay $80,000 to be a sponsor of Aztec basketball and baseball this season, according to Rick Taylor, SDSU assistant athletic director in charge of the corporate sponsorship program.
“It will help us heavily with the exposure of the Caliente name across the border,” said Arturo Alemany, an official in Caliente’s San Diego office and involved in reaching the agreement. “We don’t expect to attract the students; they are not our market. It is the parents and the 25,000 or 30,000 people who go to the football games we are seeking.”
The relationship with Caliente is one of 17 the Aztecs have announced for this season, but it is the only one whose business is associated with gambling. Probably no businesses raises more concern among those in charge of college athletics than the gaming industry.
Earlier this year, a planned sponsorship by Showboat Hotel & Casino of a Dec. 10 basketball game between Kansas and Temple in Atlantic City, N.J., was cancelled after Dick Schultz, National Collegiate Athletic Assn. president, spoke against the plan.
“We cannot legislate integrity,” Schultz said in published reports. “This (the casino-sponsored game) is a good example. The only way we’re going to have integrity is if each institution makes a commitment to have complete integrity in its programs. Presidents and athletic directors have to be on the same page.”
In this case, SDSU President Thomas Day and Miller are in general agreement. Day said he supports Miller’s corporate fund-raising program, including the Caliente agreement.
“I saw it (the Caliente sign) down there among all the others,” Day said. “If it was standing by itself, I might have been a little bit more concerned. But it was standing there among all the others. . . . It was one of 20 signs, and it was as tasteful as anything else.”
Day said the corporate program is a financially necessity as long as the university is unable to more fully fund its athletic program from gate revenue. Football revenue is crucial to the funding of the entire athletic department. The Aztecs announced a crowd of 20,112 for its opener against Air Force and are expecting a crowd of similar size Saturday night.
“I saw the signs at the game, but I also saw less than 20,000 paid tickets,” Day said. “We have to have average 30,000 to pay for the full range of sports.”
Day has set no formal guidelines for the selection of companies in the sponsorship program and has left this issue primarily to Miller.
Miller cited NCAA advertising guidelines in ruling out only three product areas--cigarettes, hard liquor and feminine hygiene. But according to Rick Evrard, NCAA director of legislative services, the association has no rules governing such sponsorship agreements during the regular season. The only NCAA regulation in this area refers to championship play, and while it says nothing about feminine hygiene products, it does prohibit “organizations or industries that promote gambling.”
Asked if the NCAA would have the same kind of objections to SDSU’s involvement with Caliente as it did to Temple’s relationship with the casino, NCAA spokesman Jim Marchiony replied: “Yes. As far we’re concerned there would be no difference.”
But Marchiony said the NCAA is powerless to act. He said that when the issue of proposing legislation to limit such associations was discussed at a recent meeting of the NCAA communications committee, the opinion was overwhelmingly against any action.
Miller agreed that sponsorships should remain an university decision.
“We are treating Caliente no different than any other legitimate business,” Miller said. “Until the NCAA says differently, we are going right ahead.”
But until their dispute with the Padres is settled, the Aztecs cannot be sure where they are headed.
The Padres contend that their lease with city gives them exclusive rights to sell advertising within the stadium and that other stadium users may only advertise game-day sponsors. The Aztecs content the Padres should not be allowed to dictate such policy in a city-owned facility.
If the Aztecs lose the arguement and are prohibited from placing most of their signs in the stadium, the future of the corporate sponsorship program might be doubt.
In selling the plan, the Aztecs have emphasized its advertising value. To companies that bought in for marketing reasons, the loss of the billboards would be a blow. But to other companies, who have viewed their participation as more a reinforcement of their support for SDSU athletics, the billboards are not a crucial issue.
Typical of this view was Ron Fowler of Mesa Distributing Co. Inc., a San Diego-based distributor of beverage products. Mesa has been signed to a $30,000 baseball sponsorship, and Fowler estimated the total value of his company’s contribution to the athletic department at $50,000 per year.
“If we bought media on a cost-per-1,000 basis, this would not be an effective buy,” said Fowler, who also owns the Sockers. “We’re doing this to support the university, and any residual value that comes to the business from it is a bonus.”
