The Arizona Board of Regents approved a plan for the ASU Sun Devils to share a new Mesa spring-training facility with the Chicago Cubs.
The plan, appoved at a meeting last night, has the school paying $2 million for a new clubhouse at the $84-million complex, slated to open in 2014.
The Sun Devils will be moving from venerable Packard Stadium. It’s not expected that the ballpark will survive: school officials are already eying the space for redevelopment and an expansion of other athletic facilities. In the end, it was more cost-effective to move the program off-campus than put the money into the ballpark.
The offer from the Cubs: the university will keep the first $1.1 million of gate and concessions revenue before a sharing deal kicks in. That would represent a doubling of the current revenues from Packard Stadium. In addition, the new ballpark would be cobranded as a joint Cubs-ASU facility.
Rendering of Wrigleyville West courtesy of the Chicago Cubs.
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