I understand why Southern Miss did it. In the current landscape of college athletics, turning down nearly $14 million would be difficult for almost any athletic department, much less one trying to compete without the financial resources of the SEC or Big Ten. The newly approved naming-rights agreement with Renasant Bank will officially change M.M. Roberts Stadium to Renasant Stadium. The roughly 10-year agreement is worth $13,706,838 to Southern Miss, beginning with a $500,000 payment in the first year before jumping to $1.3 million in Year 2 and eventually reaching nearly $1.65 million annually by the end of the deal. That’s serious money for Southern Miss.
It’s also why this is complicated. I understand the move. I just don’t particularly like what the move says about where college sports is headed.
College athletics is entering an entirely different financial world. Following the House settlement, schools are now able to directly share millions of dollars in revenue with athletes, while NIL opportunities continue outside that system. Southern Miss athletic director Jeremy McClain has already acknowledged that reality, saying the university has created opportunities to share revenue with selected student-athletes while emphasizing the need for additional private support to remain competitive. Southern Miss doesn’t have an SEC television check arriving every year. It doesn’t have 100,000 people filling its stadium seven Saturdays every fall. It doesn’t have Alabama, LSU or Georgia money. When somebody is willing to give your athletic department $13.7 million for the name on the football stadium, you listen.
That’s why I don’t blame Southern Miss.
I’m just sad that we’ve reached the point where this is becoming necessary.
There is something different about the names of college stadiums, particularly in the Deep South. Think about driving through SEC country and the places that immediately come to mind. Bryant-Denny Stadium. Jordan-Hare Stadium. Tiger Stadium. Vaught-Hemingway Stadium. Davis Wade Stadium. Ben Hill Griffin Stadium. These aren’t just names printed on buildings. They’re part of the identity of the universities and towns surrounding them.
The same thing exists in college baseball. Alex Box Stadium. Dudy Noble Field. Swayze Field. Pete Taylor Park. You hear those names and you immediately know where you are. Pete Taylor Park doesn’t need a corporate sponsor attached to it for Southern Miss fans to understand what “The Pete” means. M.M. Roberts Stadium never needed one either. Southern Miss fans simply called it “The Rock,” dating back to the days when the stadium was built. And that nickname meant more than anything a marketing department could have ever created.
I’ve already watched it happen with one of my favorite stadium names.
For years, the Superdome was simply the Superdome. It didn’t need anything in front of it. If somebody in Mississippi or the Gulf Coast said they were going to “the Dome,” everybody knew exactly what they meant. The building itself was the brand. The building became one of the most recognizable sports venues in America without needing a company’s name attached to it.
Then it became the Mercedes-Benz Superdome. Now it’s the Caesars Superdome.
I understand those deals too. I still don’t particularly like them.
And despite all the money spent for those naming rights, listen to the way people in New Orleans actually talk. They’re not saying, “I’ll meet you at Caesars.” They’re saying, “I’ll meet you at the Dome.” The corporate sponsor bought the official name. It didn’t buy the building’s identity.
I suspect the same thing will happen in Hattiesburg. Television graphics will say Renasant Bank Stadium. The signs outside will say Renasant Bank Stadium. Broadcasters will call it that because that’s the official name. But Southern Miss fans are still going to say they’re heading to The Rock.
Think about Bryant-Denny Stadium. It’s one of the most recognizable names in American sports. Alabama football, Bear Bryant and generations of history are wrapped into that name. Twenty years ago, the idea of selling its naming rights would have sounded almost sacrilegious. Today, can we really say with certainty that it could never happen?
Imagine a major Alabama-based corporation or financial institution showing up with an enormous check. Regions Bank, for example, has deep roots in Alabama and is headquartered in Birmingham. What happens if someday the money becomes too large to ignore? Are we eventually watching Alabama play inside Regions Bank Stadium at Saban Field?
I’m not saying that’s going to happen. I’m saying college athletics has reached a point where the hypothetical doesn’t sound as ridiculous as it once would have.
And that’s the problem. Bring the same scenario back to Hattiesburg. Pete Taylor Park is one of the most recognizable college baseball venues in the country. Southern Miss fans call it The Pete. Pete Taylor coached Southern Miss baseball for decades, and Hill Denson’s name on the field represents another chapter of the program’s history. What happens if a Hattiesburg business someday walks into the athletic department with $10 million or $15 million and wants its name on the ballpark?
Would we eventually have Forrest General Park at Hill Denson Field? Could we one day be looking at the Wayne-Sanderson Farms Coliseum at the Reed Green ?
Again, that’s not something being proposed. It’s an example of where this road could eventually lead. Once the name of the football stadium becomes something that can be sold, it’s fair to wonder which piece of tradition becomes available next.
The difficult part is figuring out what athletic departments are supposed to do instead. College sports fans want their schools to win. We want Southern Miss to recruit good players. We want Southern Miss to keep those players. We want upgraded facilities, bigger recruiting staffs, good coaches and competitive NIL opportunities. Now schools are also operating in a world where direct revenue sharing with athletes has become part of the equation.
All of that costs money.
You can’t demand that Southern Miss keep up with the rapidly changing economics of college football and then criticize the athletic department every time it finds another revenue stream. Southern Miss has to find money somewhere, and a $13.7 million naming-rights agreement is exactly the type of opportunity schools outside the richest conferences increasingly have to consider.
That’s why I understand the decision.
But understanding it doesn’t mean I have to celebrate it.
There has always been big money in college sports. None of this started with NIL. Television networks have paid enormous amounts for college football for decades. Coaches have made millions. Shoe companies have sponsored programs. Boosters have written checks. Luxury suites have been built. Conference realignment has been driven largely by television revenue. The idea that college sports suddenly became a business in the last five years is ridiculous. It has been a business for a long time.
What’s changing is how much of the tradition itself is becoming erased.
The field can have a sponsor. The conference can have a sponsor. The pregame show can have a sponsor. The replay can have a sponsor. The athlete can have sponsors. The athletic department can share revenue with athletes. Eventually somebody looks around the stadium and realizes the biggest unsold billboard might be the name of the building itself.
Maybe that’s simply the reality of modern college athletics. Southern Miss would have been foolish not to take the money.
In fact, that’s probably what bothers me most. Southern Miss may have made the financially responsible decision. In the current landscape, it might have made the only realistic decision. And I still hate that college sports has come to this.
Because M.M. Roberts Stadium wasn’t just a collection of letters attached to a football stadium. Bryant-Denny isn’t just a building in Tuscaloosa. Tiger Stadium isn’t just 102,000 seats in Baton Rouge. Pete Taylor Park isn’t just Southern Miss baseball’s facility. Those names tell stories. They connect current fans to people who were sitting in those same stadiums decades before them.
That’s one of the things that has always separated college sports from professional sports. Professional stadiums change names constantly. One company buys the rights, the contract expires, another company writes a bigger check and somebody gets on a ladder to change the sign. College venues traditionally felt more permanent. Their names belonged to coaches, administrators, players, universities and communities.
Now those names increasingly have a price.
So yes, I understand why Southern Miss accepted $13.7 million. In today’s college football economy, it would be hard not to. And most of us will probably keep calling it The Rock anyway. But I’ll miss M.M. Roberts Stadium. Not because Southern Miss made the wrong decision, but because it might have made the right one.
And that says more about the state of college football than any corporate logo ever could.
About The Author
