Football struggles may hurt ku’s plans for luxury Gridiron Club
By J. BRADY McCOLLOUGH
The Kansas City Star
LAWRENCE | Less than three months ago, the Kansas athletics department began promoting its proposed Gridiron Club at Memorial Stadium as the vision for ku football’s future.
The 3,000-seat luxury club-level addition to the east side of the stadium would stand as a promise to the owners of those prized cushions that they were not fans of a flash-in-the-pan program but members of a club with a legacy that was just being built.
All it would take to raise the Gridiron Club from the ground by the beginning of the 2010 season was a total of $34 million, and with the Jayhawks coming off back-to-back bowl victories and picked by many to win the Big 12 North, that gaudy number did not seem too daunting.
But as the losses began to pile up this season, culminating with an investigation into ku coach Mark Mangino’s treatment of players that has edged into its third week, Kansas officials have had to acknowledge the reality that their vision may have been too grand.
ku associate athletics director for external relations Jim Marchiony said Wednesday that Kansas has raised only $3.5 million ? just more than 10 percent of the amount necessary to break ground. The athletics department will have to acquire at least that amount in pledges or commitments from donors to follow through with its original plan.
“We knew it would be a challenge,” Marchiony said, “although we think it will be a challenge that we can meet. But we knew that $34 million was a large number.”
Marchiony said the Williams Educational Fund is in the process of reaching out to donors, continuing to explain the unique opportunity that the Gridiron Club presents to fans. Buying a seat there is a long-term investment that can be financed like a home or a car; it takes $25,000 per seat for a five-year commitment, and price levels go all the way up to $105,000 per seat for a 30-year commitment.
A Wall Street Journal story referred to arrangements such as the Gridiron Club, which are just starting to pop up around the country, as “the sports mortgage.” Marchiony said seat-owners can sell their seats at any time during the agreement for whatever the market suggests. After a 5-7 season and with Mangino’s job status up in the air, it is hard to see whether donors would be buying low or high at the moment.
Marchiony said he did not think the Jayhawks’ performance this season was the reason that ku may not reach the $34 million mark.
“We’ll never know,” Marchiony said, “but the donors we’ve talked to understand this is a long-term concept. This is not something that is affected by one disappointing football season. The disappointing season, from our discussions that we’ve had, has not been a deterrent for a vast majority of the people we’ve talked to. The reaction we’ve gotten is that Kansas football is at a level where this kind of disappointment won’t happen on a regular basis.”
Early on, Kansas made an effort to sweeten the offer for prospective buyers; when the club was announced, ku wanted all the money up front. Now, the athletic department is allowing it to be paid in interest-free installments.
“The feedback we got was that this was a much more palatable way to do this, and so we listened,” Marchiony said.
With the Gridiron Club in flux, the decision between retaining the embattled Mangino or firing him and going in a new direction could be a factor in the project’s being completed on schedule. Certainly, the right coaching hire could provide some momentum.
Marchiony said he didn’t know what would happen to the Gridiron Club plans if ku does not raise enough money in the next month.
“That’s a decision that we’ll make as we get closer to it,” Marchiony said. “I don’t think anybody’s ready to make a determination on that right now.”
