So apparently they have between 4 and 5 hundred million in stadium debt (I'm not going to try to figure out the interest, etc).

The University took about half of it from the athletic dept.

Their payments are apparently just under $20M, and go up to 26M later.

No Pac deal would seem to cover that amount (and the rest of the dept's costs).

And the stadium branding deal would seem to have obviously fallen through.

So my question is this:

If Cal does not get a Big10 invite, do they have any creative options to reduce that debt besides just trying to make the payments?

And I mean besides trying to put the squeeze on UCLA : )

Why didn't they raise most or all of the money first? That was a lot of money to remodel a stadium. They better find some donors with some deep pockets if the TV deal does not work in their favor.

Another reason Cal may vote for a long Amazon deal for more money rather than an ESPN-heavy deal with more exposure.

(11-20-2022 09:43 PM)Skyhawk Wrote:  So apparently they have between 4 and 5 hundred million in stadium debt (I'm not going to try to figure out the interest, etc).

The University took about half of it from the athletic dept.

Their payments are apparently just under $20M, and go up to 26M later.

No Pac deal would seem to cover that amount (and the rest of the dept's costs).

And the stadium branding deal would seem to have obviously fallen through.

So my question is this:

If Cal does not get a Big10 invite, do they have any creative options to reduce that debt besides just trying to make the payments?

And I mean besides trying to put the squeeze on UCLA : )

Based on Wikipedia the High Performance Center cost $153 million (roughly $170,000 per each of 900 student-athletes - Cal has 30 sports).

The stadium renovation was $321 million, much of it because the stadium sits on top of the Hayward Fault. In the event of the big one, the west side of the fault could move four feet and drop two feet. The east and west stands are structurally separate, as are blocks of the north and south stands which are setting on 4-foot concrete blocks on top of sand and high-density plastic, so that the stands just jump rather than rupture.

The UC general budget assumed $200 million of the debt (estimated cost of earhquake retrofit). During the design, Cal seismologists were involved, making the project a research project). The university was also going to take the soccer/track stadium and convert it to residential housing, but that apparently hasn't happened. The track stadium was at one time a big-time venue, but the last NCAA championship there was in 1968. Now the NCAA finals are almost always at Eugene.

The stadium renovation was supposed to be paid for with seat subscriptions, but that apparently fell way way short.

Until last week the field was "FTX Field at California Memorial Stadium". The logo has been removed. Hopefully the licensing fee was paid in cash.

(11-21-2022 03:37 AM)jimrtex Wrote:  

(11-20-2022 09:43 PM)Skyhawk Wrote:  So apparently they have between 4 and 5 hundred million in stadium debt (I'm not going to try to figure out the interest, etc).

The University took about half of it from the athletic dept.

Their payments are apparently just under $20M, and go up to 26M later.

No Pac deal would seem to cover that amount (and the rest of the dept's costs).

And the stadium branding deal would seem to have obviously fallen through.

So my question is this:

If Cal does not get a Big10 invite, do they have any creative options to reduce that debt besides just trying to make the payments?

And I mean besides trying to put the squeeze on UCLA : )

Based on Wikipedia the High Performance Center cost $153 million (roughly $170,000 per each of 900 student-athletes - Cal has 30 sports).

The stadium renovation was $321 million, much of it because the stadium sits on top of the Hayward Fault. In the event of the big one, the west side of the fault could move four feet and drop two feet. The east and west stands are structurally separate, as are blocks of the north and south stands which are setting on 4-foot concrete blocks on top of sand and high-density plastic, so that the stands just jump rather than rupture.

The UC general budget assumed $200 million of the debt (estimated cost of earhquake retrofit). During the design, Cal seismologists were involved, making the project a research project). The university was also going to take the soccer/track stadium and convert it to residential housing, but that apparently hasn't happened. The track stadium was at one time a big-time venue, but the last NCAA championship there was in 1968. Now the NCAA finals are almost always at Eugene.

The stadium renovation was supposed to be paid for with seat subscriptions, but that apparently fell way way short.

Until last week the field was "FTX Field at California Memorial Stadium". The logo has been removed. Hopefully the licensing fee was paid in cash.

https://sfstandard.com/business/uc-berke...-450-days/

Quote:"... the deal was to be paid entirely in cryptocurrency..."

Doesn't look like it....

(11-21-2022 03:57 AM)Skyhawk Wrote:  

(11-21-2022 03:37 AM)jimrtex Wrote:  

(11-20-2022 09:43 PM)Skyhawk Wrote:  So apparently they have between 4 and 5 hundred million in stadium debt (I'm not going to try to figure out the interest, etc).

The University took about half of it from the athletic dept.

Their payments are apparently just under $20M, and go up to 26M later.

No Pac deal would seem to cover that amount (and the rest of the dept's costs).

And the stadium branding deal would seem to have obviously fallen through.

So my question is this:

If Cal does not get a Big10 invite, do they have any creative options to reduce that debt besides just trying to make the payments?

And I mean besides trying to put the squeeze on UCLA : )

Based on Wikipedia the High Performance Center cost $153 million (roughly $170,000 per each of 900 student-athletes - Cal has 30 sports).

The stadium renovation was $321 million, much of it because the stadium sits on top of the Hayward Fault. In the event of the big one, the west side of the fault could move four feet and drop two feet. The east and west stands are structurally separate, as are blocks of the north and south stands which are setting on 4-foot concrete blocks on top of sand and high-density plastic, so that the stands just jump rather than rupture.

The UC general budget assumed $200 million of the debt (estimated cost of earhquake retrofit). During the design, Cal seismologists were involved, making the project a research project). The university was also going to take the soccer/track stadium and convert it to residential housing, but that apparently hasn't happened. The track stadium was at one time a big-time venue, but the last NCAA championship there was in 1968. Now the NCAA finals are almost always at Eugene.

The stadium renovation was supposed to be paid for with seat subscriptions, but that apparently fell way way short.

Until last week the field was "FTX Field at California Memorial Stadium". The logo has been removed. Hopefully the licensing fee was paid in cash.

https://sfstandard.com/business/uc-berke...-450-days/

Quote:"... the deal was to be paid entirely in cryptocurrency..."

Doesn't look like it....

Stanford AD wipes brow after not signing deal to name stadium Theranos Colosseum.

they have the money in their endowment
their crying to get alumni to pay, but they are to smart

(11-21-2022 05:41 AM)templefootballfan Wrote:  they have the money in their endowment
their crying to get alumni to pay, but they are to smart

From what I can tell, a fair portion of the endowment cannot be touched.

There are lots of sites, but here are a few:

https://admissionsight.com/berkeley-endowment/

https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/p...nd-pension

https://berkeleyendowment.org/wp-content...-Final.pdf

The last is a pdf.

says who Cal's bylaws.
15% of interest of Cal's endowment will cover
expansion, salaries, maintenance, tuition

i'd be rich, if somebody paid my bills

Three quick things:

1) Cal's FTX deal was paid in Crypto...and then immediately converted to dollars. It's unclear exactly how much money Cal is going to be out here, but at least Learfield isn't holding worthless pretend money tokens.

2) Cal is unable to just dip into the endowment funds *because of state law*, not just Cal policy. Restricted use funds cannot be used for any purposes outside of what they were originally created for. If a dude died and left his money to be used for say, law student scholarships, the school legally can't use that money for stadium debt. Endowments are not checking accounts.

3) that being said, if Cal wanted, their university operating budget is still plenty large enough that the school itself COULD handle the remaining balloon payments. They will face significant political and institutional pressure to NOT do that, but they could if they wanted.

(11-20-2022 09:43 PM)Skyhawk Wrote:  So apparently they have between 4 and 5 hundred million in stadium debt (I'm not going to try to figure out the interest, etc).

The University took about half of it from the athletic dept.

Their payments are apparently just under $20M, and go up to 26M later.

No Pac deal would seem to cover that amount (and the rest of the dept's costs).

And the stadium branding deal would seem to have obviously fallen through.

So my question is this:

If Cal does not get a Big10 invite, do they have any creative options to reduce that debt besides just trying to make the payments?

And I mean besides trying to put the squeeze on UCLA : )

Look for Cal and the University of Colorado to drop football within a decade

(11-21-2022 11:03 AM)No Bull Wrote:  

(11-20-2022 09:43 PM)Skyhawk Wrote:  So apparently they have between 4 and 5 hundred million in stadium debt (I'm not going to try to figure out the interest, etc).

The University took about half of it from the athletic dept.

Their payments are apparently just under $20M, and go up to 26M later.

No Pac deal would seem to cover that amount (and the rest of the dept's costs).

And the stadium branding deal would seem to have obviously fallen through.

So my question is this:

If Cal does not get a Big10 invite, do they have any creative options to reduce that debt besides just trying to make the payments?

And I mean besides trying to put the squeeze on UCLA : )

Look for Cal and the University of Colorado to drop football within a decade

I can understand Cal.

Why Colorado?

As I understand it, Cal is making interest only payments well into the next decade.

Cal endowment will need to eat the athletic debt for all the stadium construction, sure they took some off the table but they will need to take all of it off the table. Where does Cal hold their graduation ceremony? Seems like an academic expense, ha

(11-20-2022 09:51 PM)Big Frog II Wrote:  Why didn't they raise most or all of the money first? That was a lot of money to remodel a stadium. They better find some donors with some deep pockets if the TV deal does not work in their favor.

I thought that a good portion of that was required to meet earthquake standards--that might have necessitated the upgrade before any money was raised.

ETA: I should have read down to jimrtex's post.

(11-21-2022 02:11 PM)EdwordL Wrote:  

(11-20-2022 09:51 PM)Big Frog II Wrote:  Why didn't they raise most or all of the money first? That was a lot of money to remodel a stadium. They better find some donors with some deep pockets if the TV deal does not work in their favor.

I thought that a good portion of that was required to meet earthquake standards--that might have necessitated the upgrade before any money was raised.

ETA: I should have read down to jimrtex's post.

IIRC the stadium is built on an earthquake fault that runs goal post to goal post.

(11-21-2022 02:50 PM)XLance Wrote:  

(11-21-2022 02:11 PM)EdwordL Wrote:  

(11-20-2022 09:51 PM)Big Frog II Wrote:  Why didn't they raise most or all of the money first? That was a lot of money to remodel a stadium. They better find some donors with some deep pockets if the TV deal does not work in their favor.

I thought that a good portion of that was required to meet earthquake standards--that might have necessitated the upgrade before any money was raised.

ETA: I should have read down to jimrtex's post.

IIRC the stadium is built on an earthquake fault that runs goal post to goal post.

Memorial Stadium gets renovated with help from Berkeley’s own

The video in this article is interesting.

(11-21-2022 12:00 PM)Skyhawk Wrote:  

(11-21-2022 11:03 AM)No Bull Wrote:  

(11-20-2022 09:43 PM)Skyhawk Wrote:  So apparently they have between 4 and 5 hundred million in stadium debt (I'm not going to try to figure out the interest, etc).

The University took about half of it from the athletic dept.

Their payments are apparently just under $20M, and go up to 26M later.

No Pac deal would seem to cover that amount (and the rest of the dept's costs).

And the stadium branding deal would seem to have obviously fallen through.

So my question is this:

If Cal does not get a Big10 invite, do they have any creative options to reduce that debt besides just trying to make the payments?

And I mean besides trying to put the squeeze on UCLA : )

Look for Cal and the University of Colorado to drop football within a decade

I can understand Cal.

Why Colorado?

Berkeley is who they model themselves after. Long and short of it is that they have already de-emphasized football. They won’t join Big 12 if PAC 12 breaks up. They won’t keep football if Cal doesn’t.

I worked there for years. Berkeley is who they model themselves after.

(11-21-2022 09:29 AM)templefootballfan Wrote:  says who Cal's bylaws. ...

Typically the terms of the donation / bequest.

There seems to be a tendency among some posters to take the endowment as a pile of money that the University can spend, when a lot of it is "a physics undergrad went into semiconductor technology in Grad School, made it rich in a Silicon Valley start-up, endows a Chair of Physics".

Not all of the endowments are tied so narrowly -- after all, some people leave money for their alma mater in their will to set up an endowment for the University to use in broadly rather than narrowly specified ways -- but quite a lot is.

So if the endowment is mostly out as an option, what other options might there be?

Is selling the stadium an option?

If so, who might buy it?

Do you think there are any other entities out there that might want the naming rights?

Any other creative options?

It just seems like they really dug a hole with the stadium, and they're talking about decades of repayment - if they can make those payments.

And I have a feeling that this could well affect realignment - more than just ucla, possibly the PAC and schools' choices.