Facility rentals bring in revenues at TCF Bank Stadium

Sadly, at the U of M, even Goldy has a price. 

From the Star-Tribune

The bride, Samantha Jones, lined up at quarterback in her wedding dress at TCF Bank Stadium and led her guests down the field for a touchdown. She paid $5,700 to hold her wedding at the stadium, and an extra $400 to hire Goldy Gopher, the University of Minnesota’s mascot.



Sherwin Williams has held large trade shows at the school’s football stadium and had Goldy Gopher pose alongside a large truck with the company logo. “They bought a bunch of paint from us when they built it,” said Rob Montgomery, a Sherwin Williams district manager.
General Mills used the stadium for movie nights, with the feature film showing on the large scoreboard.




In an attempt to find revenue in unusual places, the university has been renting out its four-year-old football stadium for everything from weddings and bar mitzvahs to Tennant Company meetings and Comcast awards banquets. The president’s suite, overlooking the field and featuring a built-in bar, rents for $600 for six hours.Wedding and bar mitzvah packages also offer an opportunity to rent the school’s spirit squad and marching band, with a brass quintet renting from $150 to $300 an hour.



“You get to rent Goldy? Yeah, that’s great,” Bill Gleason, an associate professor at the university’s medical school, said sarcastically.



Gleason, a faculty member since 1992, has been an outspoken critic of the school’s corporate relationships.



“It just doesn’t smell right,” he added. Gleason said he believes the rental money, which goes to the school’s athletic budget, should go to the university’s general fund or to reduce student fees.

To whom does the stadium belong and where should funds go that are made from its rental? What is the cut for the poor exploited student rodent and what is the cut for his masters?

Students are paying a fee for the Bank debt retirement, even if they never set foot in the Bank. Of course we could always hold graduations in the Bank so that every student would have to "set foot" in the stadium. The Bank is shorthand for Twin City Federal Stadium. Telling.

Also sad and pathetic.