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Tampa Bay Lightning Owner Puts Up $5 Million Towards USF’s Insane New Football Stadium

#College Football
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Tampa Bay Lightning Owner Puts Up $5 Million Towards USF's Insane New Football Stadium

iStockphoto / csfotoimages


  • The USF Bulls are seeking a college football stadium of their own and just got $5 million in help from the Tampa Bay Lightning owners
  • The Viniks are considered Tampa Bay royalty for what they’ve done with the Lightning and they might deserve the key to the city after this donation
  • Read more College Football stories here

The University of South Florida (USF) Bulls are moving forward with a plan to build a football stadium of their own. Currently, the USF Bulls play their games at Raymond James Stadium which is the home of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers but plans are in motion to build their own stadium.

The USF Board of Trustees met last Winter to agree to move forward with the plan for a new stadium. At that time, they discussed this project costing anywhere from $250 to $400 million which is a BARGAIN compared to the billion-dollar stadium that’s being built in Buffalo for the Bills. But USF will need some help to foot a bill for hundreds of millions of dollars.

USF Board of Trustees Has Chosen A Location, Now Needs Funds

In the beginning of March, the USF Board of Trustees (BOT) chose a recommended location for the new football stadium, the Sycamore Fields site on the east side of the Tampa campus. They also received a massive gift of $5 million then from USF supporters Frank and Carol Morsani.

Not to be outdone, the Tampa Bay Lightning owners just donated $5 million towards the new stadium as well. The Viniks are basically Tampa Bay royalty at this point. The Lightning have won back-to-back Stanley Cups and have one of the best fanbases in all of sports.

The Stadium Looks Stunning, Will Be An Excellent Addition To Tampa

The Tampa Bay Business Journal was first to report the Viniks gift of $5 million towards building a new USF football stadium. This rendering of the stadium has been floating around since 2018 but it’s still a beautiful sight to behold:

Construction on the USF Bulls’ new football stadium is expected to begin somewhere around 2026 or 2027.

According to a recent article in Axios, a new college football stadium costing upwards of $400 million would be primarily funded by wealthy alumni. Getting these initial donations of $5 million from the Viniks and Morsani is great but that’s just $10 million out of $400M.

The University of South Florida alumni network has never been called on to donate on such a massive scale like this. Which could be a blessing in disguise. It’s a MASSIVE university with a huge alumni network. They might find it’s an alumni base that is willing to donate en masse.

Another possibility is the USF alumni network has no interest in forking over the other $390 million for a new stadium even if it looks incredible.

What are the Bulls fans saying on Twitter?

The Viniks buying the Tampa Bay Rays would make my life A LOT better. I don’t see it ever happening as the current Rays owners make plenty of money by running the team without spending on big salaries. But the Viniks taking over would be the best-case scenario for Tampa Bay sports.

Cass Anderson BroBible headshot and avatar
Cass Anderson is the Editor-in-Chief of BroBible. Based out of Florida, he covers an array of topics including NFL, Pop Culture, Fishing News, and the Outdoors.
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