Did conflict of interest cost Fresno State in football stadium deal with Valley Children’s?
Fresno State will receive $10 million over 10 years for naming its aging football stadium after Valley Children’s Healthcare, the Madera-based nonprofit, as well as funding scholarships and other collaborative opportunities.
But the deal and how it came together in 2022 has left the university open to questions from critics about whether it maximized its potential in contract negotiations and whether former long-time administrator Deborah Adishian-Astone should have recused herself or been disqualified from participating in those negotiations due to a potential conflict of interest.
That potential conflict stems from a relationship between Valley Children’s Healthcare and Catalyst, the Fresno marketing company owned by Mark Astone, who is Adishian-Astone’s husband. Valley Children’s and Catalyst have been in business since 2016, the year Adishian-Astone was appointed vice president of administration at Fresno State. Since then, Valley Children’s has paid Catalyst more than $12 million for advertising services, according to tax documents from the nonprofit filed between 2018 and 2024.
Fresno State president Saúl Jiménez-Sandoval and Adishian-Astone declined interview requests from The Fresno Bee to discuss the naming rights negotiations with Valley Children’s Healthcare and its relationship with Catalyst.
Adishian-Astone has since retired from the university, leaving at the end of 2024.
The university instead sent The Bee a written statement and background information that said Adishian-Astone disclosed any potential conflicts of interest through her annual Form 700, known as a statement of economic interests, and provided those documents. Adishian-Astone included Catalyst on the form under Investments, Income and Assets of Business Entities/Trusts, with Valley Children’s Hospital listed as a reportable single source of income of $10,000 or more.
Elected officials and public employees in the state who make or influence governmental decisions are required to submit the form every year, in part, according to the California Fair Political Practices Commission website, as a reminder of potential conflicts so that an official can abstain from making or participating in decisions that are deemed to be a conflict of interest.
The statement from the university said that Adishian-Astone was just one of several campus administrators on the university’s negotiating team. But, as vice president of administration and chief financial officer, as well as chair of the university’s Athletic Corporation, Adishian-Astone was a key campus negotiator, along with internal and external counsel.
The university also said that in addition to filling out the Form 700 that she had informed former Fresno State president Joseph I. Castro of the potential conflict, “prior to the commencement of any contract negotiations.” The statement did not say how exactly she “informed” Castro.
But Castro told The Bee in October that he was not aware of the conflict.
“I was not informed by Debbie Astone of any personal conflict of interest with Valley Children’s Healthcare,” he said, in a written statement. “Had I been informed of such a conflict, I would have required her to recuse herself from involvement in negotiating the sponsorship agreement with Valley Children’s Healthcare.”
Castro, the former Fresno State president, left the university in 2021 when he was appointed chancellor of the California State University system. He resigned in February 2022 amid allegations that Fresno State officials mismanaged sexual harassment allegations against a former university administrator during his tenure.
CSU, Fresno State dodge conflict questions
The CSU has a conflict of interest handbook, but a request to interview an attorney in its Office of General Counsel who specializes in conflict of interest policy was referred back to Fresno State. A CSU spokesperson stated, “Our Office of General Council does not provide outside legal analysis. The campus would be best situated to provide you any factual information on the topic of your article as it relates to the policy.”
Fresno State then deferred a similar request from The Bee to discuss the conflict of interest policy back to the CSU. “We would defer to the (chancellor’s office) on this inquiry, as this is a CSU-wide policy, and not specific to Fresno State,” a spokesperson said.
The general prohibition on conflicts of interest in the CSU stems from the Political Reform Act of 1974, and states: “A public official at any level of state or local government shall not make, participate in making, or in any way attempt to use the public official’s official position to influence a governmental decision in which the official knows or has reason to know the official has a financial interest.”
The CSU policy on disqualification due to a conflict of interest states: “Where a conflict of interest exists, employees must publicly announce the financial interest creating the conflict and also must disqualify themselves from involvement in the decision. At a minimum, announcement of a conflict requires that the employee notify their direct supervisor and may require that the employee publicly announce the conflict during a public meeting and leave the room.”
Perhaps more material to a potential conflict of interest, the policy urges CSU employees to be sensitive to the appearance of a conflict, and to carefully consider whether to participate in a negotiation when they have a financial interest at stake.
“One of the things that universities should be concerned about is thinking through the implications of the various partnerships, relationships, contracts, and having clear conflict of interest policies,” said Sondra Barringer, an associate professor of education policy and leadership at Southern Methodist University, who studies the relationships between universities and external organizations, groups and individuals.
“Beyond that, I think it’s important for universities to create and foster cultures of transparency and disclosure. When you have transparency and disclosure, when those are part of the culture of the institution, it fosters trust. It fosters trust internally. It fosters trust between the university and its community.”
It’s unclear whether Jiménez-Sandoval was informed of the potential conflict when he was appointed as the university’s interim president in January of 2021 or president in May of 2021, more than a year before the university and Valley Children’s Healthcare entered into the agreement.
John Pelissero, a senior scholar for government ethics at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University, said that when university administrators involve themselves in contracts in which they have a conflict, particularly involving a family member, it can erode trust in the institution.
“One of the things that we look for is for university administrators to have enough ethical awareness to understand that they have a conflict of interest and in the best interests of the university they should not be involved at all in the contracting process,” he said.
Such conflicts are not common in university settings, said Pelissero, who also is a professor emeritus of political science at Loyola University Chicago and has spent more than 40 years working on college campuses. Safeguards including a conflict of interest policy and disclosure requirements typically are in place, as they are in the CSU system, and they are there for a reason.
“The public has a right to expect that their tax dollars that support public universities are going to be looked after by good stewards who have the fiduciary responsibility for this, and they shouldn’t be placed in the hands of people who could use their positions to advance the financial or private interests of a family member,” Pelissero said. “That just erodes trust in those who are in management positions in the university.”
Adishian-Astone offers ‘personal statement’
The university, in its statement to The Bee, stated, “Fresno State and the Fresno State Athletic Corporation engaged external expert legal counsel to lead the negotiations for the cooperative agreement with Valley Children’s Healthcare that included naming rights for the football stadium. In addition, the CSU Board of Trustees also approved the agreement prior to its execution by the University and the Athletic Corporation. All necessary disclosures by the campus leadership were made at the time, as required.
“A team, led by internal and external legal counsel, including the Athletic Director, CFO and President, were all involved in negotiating the terms and conditions contained within the agreement. As would be required with any CFO’s position, Vice President Adishian-Astone provided counsel but was in no way the final decision maker on the agreement. A $10 million deal valuation was believed to be in the best interest of the Fresno State Athletic Department and was executed in good faith.”
Adishian-Astone detailed her involvement in the Valley Children’s negotiations in a “personal statement” that was emailed to The Bee. “Please consider this email as my official comment which I understand through my personal attorney that you are required to include what I provide to you in its entirety as my official response to any stories you do now or in the future,” Adishian-Astone wrote.
In the email, she reiterated much of the statement from the university, including the assertion that she disclosed the relationship between Valley Children’s Healthcare and Catalyst to Castro at the onset of negotiations.
The personal statement also included:
I did not have sole final decision authority on any of the contractual terms for the VCH collaborative agreement. That responsibility ultimately resided with the campus president with advice of CSU and external counsel;
I was only one of the campus administrators on the team in addition to our former director of athletics, Terry Tumey, and our CSU campus counsel. The negotiations were actually led by our expert external legal counsel, ArentFox;
My husband’s company (Catalyst) had no involvement or representation with VCH in regards to the collaborative agreement. VCH hired a separate consultant as referenced in the collaborative agreement;
Catalyst’s media placement contract with VCH started in 2016 and was a result of a competitive RFP process;
Catalyst’s contract with VCH was significantly reduced and then subsequently terminated by VCH during the time period when final contract negotiations regarding the collaborative agreement were occurring between VCH and Fresno State;
Adishian-Astone did not respond to a return email with follow-up questions including: Why not simply recuse yourself, given CSU conflict of interest policies?
The Bee also reached out to Mark Astone, through Catalyst. A call was not returned.
Valley Children’s Healthcare tax documents show payments to Catalyst declined from 2020 to 2021, as Adishian-Astone stated in her email, dropping from $1.8 million to $1.5 million. Those payments increased to $1.7 million in 2022, the year the naming rights contract was approved by the CSU board of trustees.
The contract expired in 2022, and though Catalyst submitted a RFP (request for proposal), Valley Children’s chose to go in another direction, according to a spokesperson for the nonprofit. Catalyst, the spokesperson said, still does work on a smaller scale for the Valley Children’s Medical Group, handling search engine marketing, some paid advertising and social media work for the primary care practices.
Inside Fresno State’s naming rights contract
There is no apparent evidence of a connection or quid pro quo between the naming rights deal and Valley Children’s business with Catalyst. But the deal raised questions almost from the start because critics saw it as one-sided in favor of Valley Children’s Healthcare, and debated its value to the Bulldogs’ athletics department.
Fresno State is to receive a $1 million sponsorship fee from Valley Children’s Healthcare every Aug. 31 through the end of the contract in 2032, the revenue to be split between the athletics department and the university’s College of Health and Human Services for internships and scholarships that focus on healthcare professions.
The amounts were to be determined by the athletics department in consultation with Jiménez-Sandoval and Adishian-Astone.
But the university also gave Valley Children’s exclusivity in healthcare advertising. To do so, its Athletic Corporation had to amend its multimedia rights contract with Learfield/Bulldog Sports Properties to eliminate healthcare from the list of categories it is allowed to sell. The athletics department as a result lost more than $500,000 in guaranteed annual revenue in the amended contract, which was obtained by The Bee through a public records request.
The relationship between the university and Learfield/BSP had deteriorated due to disagreements over the impact to revenue streams in 2020-21, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. But in adding healthcare to the list of categories Learfield/BSP could not sell, the parties agreed the guaranteed rights fee would be reduced by $550,000 in 2021-22, $605,000 in 2022-23 and $665,500 in 2023-24.
The rights fee was to be reduced by as much as $965,000 in 2025-26, but the agreement was amended again in April 2024, the parties resolving their dispute over the impact COVID-19 had on revenue streams and setting fees in 2024-25 and 2025-26.
Tumey, the former athletics director at Fresno State, declined to comment on the Valley Children’s deal.
In the contract negotiations with Valley Children’s Healthcare, the university also agreed to delete look-in clauses that would have allowed for a renegotiation or a set increase of the annual sponsorship fee if the university renovated its football stadium or was to join a more prestigious conference.
Those clauses were rejected by Valley Children’s, according to a university spokesperson, and school officials still moved ahead with the naming rights deal. Fresno State did in fact take a step up in conference affiliation, announcing in September that it would become a member of a rebuilt Pac-12 in 2026.
University officials did protect Valley Children’s, however, including a provision in the contract that allows for the deal to be terminated if Fresno State is no longer a member of the FBS (football bowl subdivision) or any successor or equivalent division.
This story was originally published February 6, 2025 at 1:03 PM.