NC State has a new naming rights partner at Carter-Finley Stadium

Date: June 8, 2022

By: Zac Ezzone - Staff writer, Triangle Business Journal

When football fans flock to North Carolina State University's Carter-Finley stadium this fall, a new name towering above the grounds will greet the patrons.

TowneBank (Nasdaq: TOWN) has forged a deal with the university to have its name on what is currently called the C. Vaughn Towers. The university's board of trustees approved the new naming rights partner during a meeting earlier this year.

"At the April N.C. State University Board of Trustees meeting, the board approved the renaming of Vaughn Towers to TowneBank Center in recognition of a $5 million philanthropic gift in an agreement that will last 10 years," said Brad Bohlander, the university's chief communications officer in a statement. "N..C State Athletics is excited to make a formal announcement with additional details in the near future."

TowneBank officials would not comment on the deal.

TowneBank made its name in the Raleigh-Durham market after the Hampton Roads, Virginia-based bank bought Raleigh's Paragon Bank for $324 million in 2017.

The Vaughn Towers name will be removed from its current location, according to multiple sources familiar with university affairs. But sources also added that the university is working with C. Richard Vaughn, a Mount Airy resident who got his degree in nuclear engineering from the Raleigh university, to see if there could be an alternate way to keep the Vaughn name on the premises.

The 117,000-square-foot Vaughn Towers facility has 51 private luxury suites with climate control, television, a soda beverage bar and hot meals. The Towers has 1,000 outdoor seats that face the field on game day. Inside the Vaughn Towers reside the Chancellor's Suite, media center, a 12,000-square-foot single floor private luxury area called the Curtis and Jacqueline Dail Club, and the foundation suite, which comprises a double suite for patrons. The facility opened in 2005.

The facility can be rented throughout the year other than the game weeks.

Bobby Purcell, the 67-year-old lifelong Wolfpack booster who ran the school's Wolfpack club for years before retiring a couple of years ago, did not want to comment on the deal but added he is excited about all things Wolfpack football this year.

But in earlier interviews, Purcell recalled how the Vaughn Towers name made its way to Carter-Finley Stadium. At a football game in the early 2000s, Purcell showed Vaughn an architectural rendering of the luxury suites that were going to be built on the stadium's west side. That rendering already had C. Vaughn Towers drawn on the structure. Purcell asked Vaughn for $5 million and in return promised to have the Vaughn name on side of the building. Vaughn initially wasn't sure but soon after agreed to a deal.

Even today, people who know Purcell say that remains Purcell's charm — the ability to convince people to back his beloved university.

The change for Carter-Finley comes as its neighbor, PNC Arena, could soon have a new name. Sources say PNC Bank (NYSE: PNC) has put forward a proposal to extend the 20-year $80 million naming rights deal with the Carolina Hurricanes parent company, Gale Force Holdings – that deal expires at the end of August. But Canes owner Tom Dundon could look elsewhere for a new naming-rights deal.

E.J. Narcise, one of the principals of Team Services LLC, a Rockville, Maryland-based naming rights consulting firm, said collegiate naming rights deals were put in place even before professional arenas started pasting corporate names on stadiums and arenas. But Narcise, who has been part of at least 25 collegiate and professional naming rights negotiations over the years, said college deals pose a unique problem.

“It’s hard to take down the name of a loving coach or respected chancellor from a stadium or an arena and replace it with a corporate entity,” Narcise said. “You are trying to figure out how to mitigate the situation without causing any dissension.”

But because of skyrocketing television rights agreements with colleges and professional leagues, the naming rights business is as healthy as ever with big corporate entities willing to spend millions of dollars in the name of marketing and branding.

"In the end, a naming rights deal is worth what someone will pay for it," Narcise said. "That's our job to scope out who will pay for it.”