Nippert Stadium Renovation Adding Potentially $17 Million To UC Athletics Budget

Oct 11, 2013; Cincinnati, OH, USA; Cincinnati Bearcats wide receiver Anthony McClung (6) gets away from Temple Owls defensive back Stephaun Marshall (29) to score a touchdown during the second quarter at Nippert Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Andrew Weber-USA TODAY Sports

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The Cincinnati Enquirer has been all over the Nippert Stadium renovation today. First was a video update from a project manager at the site and now they’ve released details on the progress on the financial side. There’s much, much more to that in the article but I chose to only focus on the following portion that was most intriguing to me.

"-All 12 founders suites are sold, with most at $1 million each and two at $1.5 million.-At this writing, one mini-suite remains available. There are a total of four mini-suites at $500,000 each.-Limited availability remains in the patio suites. There are 20 large suites (eight-person, at $30,000 per year) and 15 small suites (four-person, at $16,000 per year).-Approximately 60 percent of the 1,099 club seats have been sold ($2,500 per seat, with a three-year commitment)."

Using those quotes as literally as possible, UC is adding roughly $17 million per year* to their current athletics budget or a 35% increase in revenue over their current annual stream of $49 million. That number will only increase when the final 40% of club seats, last mini-suite, and remaining patio suites are sold. When they are, that additional revenue to Cincinnati’s budget will balloon to about $18.5 million, or 38% more than UC’s current stream.

*I interpreted “limited availability” for patio suites as roughly 25% left. We could go back and forth all on what that phrase means but I think the interpretation I used is fair.

When naysayers (hi, Mike DeCourcy!) openly object to the Nippert Stadium renovation and advocate moving the program downtown to Paul Brown Stadium, I point to those numbers above as millions of reasons why it makes sense to keep UC football on campus. Cincinnati’s budget is desperate for an influx of cash. This is especially so since the move from the Big East to AAC which reduced their TV contract revenue by about $1 million per year, among other retractions to the flow of income.

To counteract that, UC is potentially boosting their budget by over a third by renovating their football stadium and it is being completely funded by private funds. Now, I’m not sure how much those donations are earmarked for the actual construction of the press box. If so, it could certainly reduce my estimations. Even so, as the Enquirer article points out, new revenue streams have opened up as a result of this projects such as weddings (these are mighty expensive, let me tell you) and banquets.

There truly are endless areas of previously untapped income that will be available to UC now thanks to the press box. I’d be extremely curious to learn what the bump in the annual budget becomes when the renovations are completed.