TAMPA, Fla. — In September 2021, Will Weatherford stood between inexperienced and gold balloons below a white cover and made the proclamation that might change the trajectory of South Florida soccer.
After taking part in their first 25 years throughout city on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ stadium, the Bulls had been prepared for their very own dwelling. Weatherford vowed an on-campus stadium — a constructing that has been mentioned longer than the varsity has existed — was lastly “going to occur.”
There was, South Florida’s board of trustees chairperson confessed later, a minor technicality: Weatherford had no precise plan.
No location in thoughts. No thought how a lot it will price. No proposal to pay for it. And no contingencies for no matter business headwinds had been brewing.
“Generally in life,” Weatherford stated, “you simply have to talk issues into existence.”
Like a $340 million stadium. Or, simply possibly, a program’s return to main faculty soccer after being left behind.
USF directors say the 35,000-seat venue will rework the college and transcend fall Saturdays when it opens in 2027. But it surely’s additionally a nine-figure shot at relevance for a soccer program that has by no means gained a convention title or appeared in a serious bowl sport.
Although some premier applications are reevaluating the services arms race as they put together to pay players directly, the Bulls are charging forward with the costliest undertaking in program historical past. The chance is that borrowing $200 million turns into an albatross across the neck of a middling mid-major program that continues to be a middling mid-major program whereas the game’s juggernauts consolidate much more energy.
The potential reward is a seat again on the desk for regardless of the subsequent stage of main faculty soccer is — earlier than it’s too late.
“We don’t simply need to be within the sport,” Weatherford stated. “We need to be aggressive within the sport and win.”
USF plans to open its new stadium in 2027. (Courtesy of USF Athletics)
A stadium 70 years within the making
The primary thought for a South Florida soccer stadium surfaced round 1957, three years earlier than the varsity’s top notch. County commissioners mentioned zoning within the campus’ northwest nook, however college president John S. Allen didn’t want intercollegiate athletics interfering with lecturers. At present, buildings for persevering with schooling and public well being stand the place the stadium may have been. There’s a Hooters simply down the road.
Merely fielding a soccer group was a literal uphill problem. The college wanted a push from a Bucs legend, Corridor of Famer Lee Roy Selmon, to start out a Division I-AA program that debuted a dozen miles away at Tampa Bay’s NFL stadium in 1997. Gamers drilled on slanted fields till 2000 when Tampa’s Raymond James Stadium ready to host Tremendous Bowl XXXV. The NFL couldn’t let the Ravens observe on a slope, so the league helped repair it. Present athletic director Michael Kelly remembers how glad directors had been; USF received a degree discipline and saved a number of thousand {dollars}.
Stadium concepts popped up periodically over the a long time. Kelly wrote a couple of venue for a grad college task earlier than becoming a member of the Bulls. A park committee proposed a sports activities advanced on an island between Tampa and St. Petersburg. As Florida ready a bid to host the 2012 Summer time Olympics, officers mentioned an 85,000-seat facility that could possibly be downsized afterward for USF.
The concepts by no means gained traction, at the same time as stadiums opened at comparable applications like UCF (2007), Houston (2014), Tulane (2014) and Colorado State (2017). In 1998, the Bulls’ athletic director informed the St. Petersburg Occasions a brand new constructing “wouldn’t make any sense” as a result of it’d be too costly. Three weeks later, SMU broke floor on a 32,000-seat stadium that, adjusted for inflation, price a 3rd of USF’s proposal.
“I feel all people thought that it is best to (construct one),” Kelly stated. “However the sensible realities had been, there was definitely no cash and never excessive sufficient on the precedence record of the college on the time to make that occur.”
The college’s priorities remained lecturers: gaining state recognition as a preeminent college and becoming a member of the celebrated Affiliation of American Universities (AAU). Soccer services remained decrease regardless of the Bulls’ climb to the Huge East. USF introduced plans for a $22 million indoor observe facility — a sensible necessity in a wet area — below one coach (Charlie Robust), started constructing it below one other (Jeff Scott) and opened it below a 3rd (Alex Golesh).
The record modified in 2021 when Weatherford made his proclamation below the white cover in the course of the groundbreaking ceremony for the indoor facility. The previous Florida statehouse speaker and Jacksonville College defensive finish questioned why USF didn’t have a stadium. He by no means received an excellent purpose. However he was in place to vary it.
South Florida’s president left a month earlier than Weatherford’s announcement, and Weatherford made it clear the successor would agree along with his imaginative and prescient. Trustees made stadium progress an goal for interim president Rhea Legislation and one in all their presidential targets after she earned the full-time job.
“I want we’d have achieved it a very long time in the past …” Weatherford stated. “Simply since you didn’t do it 30 years in the past doesn’t imply you shouldn’t do it immediately.”
Even when immediately seems very totally different than it did three years in the past, a lot much less 30.
For those who construct it …
Although convention realignment has by no means been the stadium’s major promoting level, its specter has hovered within the background.
Weatherford made his proclamation because the Huge 12 was on the verge of growth; South Florida didn’t make the minimize. A trustee has requested in two board conferences whether or not a stadium would assist the Bulls get into the SEC.
When Weatherford sought closing financing approval from the state, he highlighted the Bulls’ 4 American Athletic Convention friends — Houston, Cincinnati, SMU and rival UCF — that earned spots within the Huge 12 or ACC.
“It’s no coincidence that each one of those universities additionally made a big funding of their athletic services, both via a brand new stadium or making great renovations to their present one,” Weatherford stated in 2023.
Although it’s no coincidence, there’s no clear trigger and impact, both.
“I feel it’s what we’d name a crucial however not enough situation,” stated Michael Leeds, an economics professor at Temple.
Leeds has studied the affect of on-campus stadiums, and he adopted Temple’s determination to remain on the Philadelphia Eagles’ venue as a substitute of constructing on campus. His takeaway: Although a mid-major program in all probability does want an on-site stadium to maneuver into the Energy 4 …
“Constructing it,” Leeds stated, “doesn’t make it occur.”
However not constructing it’d assure it doesn’t occur.
Although services will not be the driving think about realignment, they matter. To join the Mountain West as a full member, Hawaii agreed to assist the state exchange the inoperative Aloha Stadium by 2032.
Services fall below “dedication to athletics success” — one of many rebuilding Pac-12’s 5 growth standards. If there have been any doubts concerning the dedication Colorado State and San Diego State have proven as they transfer from the Mountain West, they will level to the mixed half a billion {dollars} they spent to construct stadiums.
Colorado State president Amy Parsons sees them as a part of a cycle. TV companions, sponsors and different colleges need to affiliate with aggressive applications that excite fan bases, play in main bowls or make the NCAA Match.
“And it begins with, does a faculty have the dedication to this system and worth this system so as to compete at that degree?” Parsons stated.
If a faculty is spending 9 figures on its stadium, the reply is a transparent sure. Particularly in opposition to these headwinds.
San Diego State opened 35,000-seat Snapdragon Stadium in 2022. (Orlando Ramirez / Imagn Photographs)
Skyrocketing stadium prices
When Weatherford began talking the Bulls’ stadium into existence, San Diego State was halfway via constructing its 35,000-seat, multipurpose stadium. Thanks partially to lower-than-expected rates of interest from the pandemic, Snapdragon Stadium’s closing worth earlier than opening in 2022 was $310 million.
If the Aztecs needed to construct it immediately, athletic director John David Wicker stated, it will in all probability price between $450 million and $500 million.
“At this level,” Wicker stated, “I don’t know the way possible that might be.”
That, too, hovers within the background at South Florida.
College have expressed considerations about erecting a stadium and adjoining operations middle for soccer and the brand new girls’s lacrosse group whereas lecture rooms had mould or leaky roofs. Citing hidden or unexpected prices, the school senate’s president forged the trustees’ lone vote in opposition to the stadium price range.
A pair of 2023 memos from Florida’s Division of Bond Finance questioned “arguably bold” projections of ticket gross sales and different “traditionally unstable” sources. If the Bulls miss their targets and may’t deal with $19.6 million in annual debt service, it warned the varsity dangers counting on its endowment or slicing athletics’ price range.
Attendance stays a long-term query. Half of USF’s convention dwelling video games fail to attract at the least 30,000 followers. And the way usually will groups like Alabama and Florida revisit if the SEC expands its conference schedule or begins an alliance with the Big Ten?
Doubts didn’t disappear in 2023 when trustees and the state individually authorized a $340 million price range: $200 million in debt, $50 million in donations, $31 million from capital funds and the remainder from sources just like the sale of previous broadband tools and auxiliary parking/bookstore funds. No tax {dollars} are included.
Trustees nonetheless haven’t authorized the ultimate price, which Weatherford stated has gone up. He referred to it as a “$400 million constructing” in November however stated not too long ago it will likely be “properly inside what we will afford.” The undertaking has already been postponed a yr due to a backed-up provide chain — and that was earlier than the Trump administration’s tariffs and research funding cuts added uncertainties in development and better schooling.
These problems come as athletic departments brace for a brand new expense: paying gamers. The prospect of $20.5 million in revenue-sharing has, together with rising development prices, reshaped the once-booming services arms race. Alabama, Auburn, Miami and Ole Miss have all paused or scaled again main soccer/basketball initiatives. After Maryland soccer moved into its new dwelling in 2021, Mike Locksley bemoaned the timing, saying that services matter much less in recruiting as a result of gamers would “dress within the trash can for $25,000.”
But when the calculus was that straightforward, Florida wouldn’t be exploring a $1 billion improve to The Swamp, and Florida State wouldn’t be spending $380 million to renovate Doak Campbell Stadium and add a soccer operations middle. The Seminoles are investing as a result of they count on services to matter extra once more in recruiting if each college has the identical de facto wage cap.
“We needed to ensure popping out of no matter was going to occur that we had been ready to reap the benefits of the brand new age of faculty athletics,” Seminoles athletic director Michael Alford stated.
That prices cash.
The Bulls plan to max out on revenue-sharing below no matter tips they’re given by the convention, NCAA or courts. USF’s 2022-23 payout from the American was $8.2 million — greater than $30 million lower than the smallest Energy 4 distribution, in keeping with convention tax returns. To compete on the highest degree attainable, the Bulls are relying on assist from the stadium’s new earnings streams: stronger ticket gross sales, pricier facilities, naming rights, further occasions like concert events.
“You may’t share income,” Kelly stated, “if you happen to don’t have any.”
‘It’s nonetheless a dream’
Final fall, 38 months after Weatherford made the proclamation that might vault the Bulls again to nationwide relevance, he stood below an excellent bigger white cover on a once-sloped swath of land a number of hundred yards north. Inexperienced and gold streamers shot via the air as dignitaries dug golden shovels right into a sand sculpture for the ceremonial groundbreaking of South Florida’s stadium.
5 months later, the bottom stays unbroken.
Regardless of a fall groundbreaking, USF hasn’t begun development but. (Matt Baker / The Athletic)
Although USF deliberate to start development by the top of February, bulldozers can’t begin rumbling till the assured most worth is ready. The lag time isn’t anticipated to maintain the stadium from debuting for the 2027 opener in opposition to Louisville.
From there, directors count on it to rework the college via higher involvement from college students and alumni plus rising curiosity from donors and potential college students. Colorado State reported its second highest enrollment final yr and is on monitor to prime it this yr. Parsons stated it’s inconceivable to quantify Canvas Stadium’s affect on these numbers, however sport days are a big recruiting device for everybody (not simply athletes).
That’s important as colleges put together for a demographic drop in college-aged college students — the so-called enrollment cliff. Elevated engagement from an on-campus stadium is one solution to struggle it and lift a college’s tutorial profile.
“I gained’t say that it’s a slam dunk,” stated Karen Weaver, a former faculty coach and administrator who teaches concerning the intersection of upper schooling and athletics at Penn. “But it surely’s definitely a solution to elevate your campus enthusiasm for athletics.”
And if that’s the objective at South Florida, Invoice Sutton is aware of it’s possible. He noticed it firsthand.
When Sutton began working at UCF’s sport enterprise administration program, the Bulls had been what the Knights aspired to be. USF was within the Huge East, then an influence convention, and skyrocketed to No. 2 in the nation. The Battle on I-4 rivalry started to show after the Knights opened what’s now referred to as FBC Mortgage Stadium in 2007. Sutton watched college students cease carrying Florida and Florida State shirts and begin supporting UCF. Fan curiosity and on-field success spiked, and the Knights capitalized on an ideal season and two different main bowl appearances to catapult previous the Bulls and into the Huge 12.
An identical leap is the dream situation for South Florida, which is 99-117 since its week at No. 2.
“If the power’s there, if it’s full, if the curiosity is there, all of the issues that we don’t actually have proper now would make the dream in play,” stated Sutton, the director emeritus of USF’s Vinik Sport and Leisure Administration Program. “It’s nonetheless a dream.”
But it surely’s a dream that’s inconceivable to disregard for a program that has already been left behind as soon as. USF is one in all three ex-Huge East colleges which have did not land in an influence convention in soccer after the league splintered round 2012 and have become the AAC. The opposite two: Temple and UConn.
The stakes are rising once more. TV contracts for the Huge Ten, SEC, Huge 12 and Faculty Soccer Playoff are all set to run out between 2030-34 as an escape hatch opens for ACC schools. If main realignment — Big Ten/SEC spin-off? Super league? — is coming, that’s the likeliest timeline. It’s why Parsons stated the stress to construct a stadium can be much more immense now than when Colorado State began its push.
“There’s a threat if you happen to construct it. There’s a threat if you happen to don’t,” Parsons stated. “And I might say on this panorama immediately, the danger if you happen to don’t is even increased.”
USF officers say they’re glad within the American. The Bulls proved that within the fall once they, together with Memphis, Tulane and UTSA, turned down interest from the new-look Pac-12 to stay put.
However the place they’re now won’t be the place they need or should be in 5-10 years, if the ACC wants a brand new foothold in Florida, or the Huge 12 expands once more, or a fault line divides the groups keen to ante into the game’s highest degree from those that aren’t.
“We simply need to be certain we’re on the proper aspect of it,” Weatherford stated. “I don’t even know what the proper aspect of it means but, however we’ll understand it after we see it.”
If faculty sports activities is coming into a brand new period of paying gamers and, maybe, tremendous leagues, Kelly asks why it issues the place applications had been generations in the past when conferences fashioned? In that case, South Florida has one of many nation’s largest pupil our bodies and sits in a top-20, fast-growing market in a talent-rich state. The Bulls have been one of many convention’s best in NIL and had been among the many nation’s first applications to place a sponsorship brand (Publix) on the sphere.
South Florida feels nearer to the underside of the Energy 4 than the center of the Group of 5, and the Bulls are keen to place a 3rd of a billion {dollars} right into a constructing to show it.
“Everybody has to acknowledge their second in historical past, I suppose,” Kelly stated. “There’s instances that decision for daring selections. There’s instances that decision for true motion.”
