I'm at the Big Ten Tournament, and since Northwestern doesn't play until 9 ET tonight, I'm relaxing by watching Ohio State take on Nebrasketball. So instead of tweeting random things about college basketball — my dad texted to say he was confused by my "Bonnies!" tweet — I figured I'd do something semi-productive. And thanks to a Twitter follower, I've found it.
Northwestern announced its newest lakefront construction plans today, and while the designs look really cool, the university first has to get the money — a whole lot of money. $3.75 billion, in fact, which is more than any fundraising project in Chicagoland history. So how will NU do that? Simple: by letting fans name everything.
On a site called SupportTheCats.com, there is a list of the different things fans can put their name on by donating money. There are the obvious big-ticket items like the new football facility and state-of-the-art academic buildings, but then there are some stranger ones. Essentially, you can have your name on basically anything in the new facilities. Let's take a look inside:
- Have $250,000 laying around? Well it's your lucky day, because you can name... the juice bar. There are four $250,000 naming possibilities — two conference rooms and a wellness suite/massage room, as well — but the juice bar might be the strangest. Here's to hoping whoever names that one decides to put aside their pride and call it the "Juice Thompson Bar."
- Someone has already named the diving well. Hopefully that doesn't crush your dreams.
- You can pay $1.5 million to name the "Social Media Hub." Idea: "The @DarrenRovell Social Media Hub."
- There are two exercise class studios for $500,000 a piece. How did they decide those are worth twice as much as a juice bar? That's a ripoff if you ask me.
- You can name the lobby for $750,000. I feel like that would be unsatisfying.
- I've always wondered if the university would deny the money for a name they didn't like. What if an Illinois fan decided to fork over the money for the Tim Beckman Football Leadership Center? Or if the United Steelworkers paid for the rights to calling the players lounge the CAPA Team Lounge? Someone with way too much money to spend should get on that. I honestly have no idea what would happen.
Anyways, if you have some cash to burn and like Northwestern sports, now you know what you can do with your money. In the meantime, it's halftime, so I'm going to go enjoy from free popcorn and Dr. Pepper. But if I ever make it big, just know that Stats Are For Losers Stadium is coming to Evanston — I have to make Pat Fitzgerald happy at least once in my life.