Bulldog Stadium gets new name with $10 million deal. Will fans see improvements soon?

The naming rights deal between Fresno State and Valley Children’s Healthcare breezed through the California State University committee on institutional advancement and on Wednesday was approved by the board of trustees.

Bulldog Stadium is now officially Valley Children’s Stadium through a $10 million, 10-year partnership between the San Joaquin Valley icons.

“We are thrilled to formalize this partnership by officially announcing the naming of Valley Children’s Stadium,” university president Saúl Jiménez-Sandoval said in a statement from the university.

“We remain grateful and honored by Valley Children’s leadership for their support. This is the perfect first step for what is sure to be an incredible football season.”

Portions of the $1 million in annual revenue is to go toward stadium enhancements, as well as operations, scholarships and support for students pursuing degrees in healthcare, and other collaborative opportunities.

But immediate impacts to the stadium prior to a 2022 football season that starts Sept. 1 against Cal Poly will be limited to signage inside and outside of the aging 40,727-seat venue. The naming rights deal is far from a singular piece in a renovation of a stadium where the last major structural upgrades were made in 1991 and ‘92 with the addition of 10,000 seats and 22 suites on the east side.

Jiménez Sandoval has formed a task group to address athletics infrastructure as well as revenue generation and brand marketability to build a more sustainable success on the playing fields.

Fresno State athletics future discussed

That committee is expected to present its findings to Jiménez Sandoval toward the end of August, athletics director Terry Tumey said, with a heightened urgency with talk of conference realignment at the Power Five level swirling after UCLA and USC ditched 100 years of history and announced they were headed to the Big Ten in 2024.

Tumey has had conversations with high-ranking officials at the Pac-12, but realignment chatter has slowed with the conference in an exclusive 30-day window with ESPN to negotiate its next media rights contract without the Los Angeles schools and the second-largest media market in the nation.

“The issues as it relates to athletics are consistent in terms of maintaining competitive excellence, wherever you are within the landscape of college athletics,” Tumey said.

“We’ve put together the task force to start addressing those issues and that stability can come in a number of forms, whether it’s revenue generation or capital improvement. All of those things are going to require more resources to support our student-athletes and the university as it moves forward.”

The group is charged with developing a plan to be integrated into the university’s five-year strategic plan, focusing on sustained competitive athletics success. Infrastructure, revenue generation, marketability and the student-athlete experience are areas of focus for the committee.

Jiménez-Sandoval in announcing the creation of that task force noted the roller-coaster ride the Bulldogs have been on for years, not just in football, but other sports, as well. Fresno State has won 10 or more games on the football field three times in the past four seasons not impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. But the Bulldogs from 2002 to 2016 had just one, going 11-2 and reaching as high as No. 15 in the Associated Press Top 25 in 2013.

Several improvements to Bulldog Stadium have been discussed, according to athletics department sources.

“The question becomes even more imperative now, with the changing landscape of conferences,” Tumey said. “But, as you know, this was part of the president’s thoughts back in February. It’s a coincidence that they’re all happening at the same time, but, literally, this is the forward-thinking aspect of our president, who understands what the athletics mean to this university and how it’s a defining point for what happens here at Fresno State.

“But the time is now for us to do that. We have a lot of different drivers in motion right now, a lot of different changes in the landscape, a lot of different changes in the experience for student-athletes. Because of all those things, this is a very timely question for the university.”

This story was originally published July 13, 2022 at 1:23 PM.