The most current news regarding the hopeful Gophers stadium is not looking up, but rather is looking down the deepest hole yet. University officials are bending over the issue and are doing what they think they can to help it up the ladder. However, going about promoting a stadium is one thing, and promoting a private business is another.
University Athletics Director Joel Maturi sent a letter to alumni and friends of the University advertising TCF Financial. This letter not only was an advertisement for TCF, but it also held the University logo, as well as a signature from one of the highest-level administrators at the University. Maybe Maturi thought the free advertising would get TCF to fork over more money, or maybe it was something else altogether. Blackmail? Death threats? A salary decrease? As many know, TCF is heading up corporate sponsorship for the stadium, with a naming rights agreement for $35 million. The recent letter might be only one example of University administration going out of its realm to push something else, but it is something to take note of.
University students pay extremely high tuition that goes toward paying administrators such as Maturi. Many students don’t even know who this guy is, but they are still paying his salary just as they are paying for many other administrators’ salaries. These administrators are taking this money and running with it. They are using their salaried hours for promoting their own private intentions. This is time spent doing one thing, while the person should instead be doing work for their paid position. Rather than an athletics director, Maturi is looking more like a cheerleading corporate lackey. Many students want a stadium as bad as he does, but advertising a private business is not the way to go about getting it built.
Administrators should be working within the Twin Cities and Minnesota community to promote the stadium. They should be going about it in a way that shows off the University as something the state should take enough pride in to support, not one that makes the University look like a begging dog.
