RandBall: Williams Arena, old for a long time, will live long past 100

A lasting memory of the old and venerable Star Tribune newsroom was a fierce debate with former college sports editor Dennis Brackin about old and venerable Williams Arena.

We even wrote a point-counterpoint (I was in favor of keeping the historic venue while he was opposed) about Williams Arena, which at that point was only 75 years old.

Now it is 97 years old. That photo you see? That is Dr. James Naismith, credited with inventing basketball and born during the first year of the U.S. Civil War in 1861, preparing to toss the basketball up for the opening tip of the first game at Williams Arena on Feb. 4, 1928.

There have been numerous debates about the arena over the years, but they have amounted to wasted ink and breath. Williams Arena hasn’t gone anywhere, and it is destined now to live well past 100.

Two pieces of supporting evidence arrived this week, as I talked about on Friday’s Daily Delivery podcast.

The first is that the Gophers athletic department announced it is seeking to sell naming rights to Williams Arena, a long-rumored development made necessary by increasing financial pressure on the department.

The Barn has been known as Williams Arena for 75 of its 97 years, after rebranding in 1950 from the University of Minnesota Fieldhouse, but there is precedent. Mariucci Arena in 2017 was renamed 3M Arena at Mariucci.

That deal was for $11.2 million over 14 years; the deal announced in 2005 to name the new football stadium TCF Bank Stadium (later Huntington when the bank brand changed) was for $35 million over 26 years and runs through 2030.

The endpoints of those deals are similar. One could imagine a shorter deal for Williams Arena naming rights so that it lined up with the other two, but even something in the 5-7 year range would push the building past 100 years with ease.

If you split the difference between the monetary impact of naming rights for the hockey arena and football stadium, let’s guess Williams Arena will fetch around $1 million a year.

That’s a drop in the bucket for a department that must come up with $20.5 million in revenue sharing money to pay athletes starting next season.

But every drop matters, which brings us to the second and more tangible clue that Williams Arena isn’t going anywhere nor getting a major facelift anytime soon.

In discussing the Barn this week, AD Mark Coyle noted that even a renovation of the building would take two years and would be costly at a time of financial uncertainty.

“I don’t want to take on new debt right now with a new facility,” he said in a radio interview on KFAN. “We decided to take a pause and take a step back.”

The only tangible change coming soon to the exterior is, the Gophers hope, a new sign signifying a corporate naming sponsorship. The only change coming to the interior, they hope, is a better product under new coach Niko Medved that will entice fans.

And meanwhile Williams Arena will keep aging. It’s already been old for a long time, and now we can count on it living well past 100.