Husky Stadium becomes Columbia Bank Stadium in $70M deal

The number is what made people stop scrolling. It works out to $7 million a year for the name on the building at Montlake.

Chris Fetters

@Chris_Fetters

Told this is the largest naming rights deal on record for college football at 10-years and $70 million, starting 1/1/2027. @UW_Football @247Sports @Dawgman247

Washington Athletics

@UWAthletics

.@UW and @Columbia_Bank announce comprehensive 10-year partnership, establishing Columbia Bank Stadium. Partnership will strengthen support for @UW student-athletes while creating new opportunities for students, alums and communities across the University and state. 📰 t.co/xddEICwvo7

It wasn't just one guy's sourcing, either. The Sports Business Journal also called it the largest stadium naming rights deal in college sports history, and the UW Board of Regents signed off on it. Columbia Bank, based in Tacoma, gets its logo on the 25-yard lines, the same spot Alaska Airlines had under the old deal. Starting next season the place is Columbia Bank Stadium.

This has been coming for a while. Alaska Airlines' original agreement from 2015 was worth $41 million, and it put the airline's name on the field. That deal ran out in 2025, and when Alaska renewed with UW it took the basketball arena at Hec Edmundson Pavilion for 10 years and $28 million and passed on the stadium. That left Pat Chun's department holding one of the best venues in college football with no sponsor on it.

Jon Wilner

@wilnerhotline

For 70m, the regents would have approved Husky Stadium presented by the Oregon Ducks Issue for Chun & Co was finding the right partner at the right price and that is much more difficult than it seems in, ahem, higher education

Christian Caple

@ChristianCaple

This has been approved by the Regents and is now official.

The Oregon Ducks line is the joke, obviously. Nobody in Seattle would sign that for any amount of money. The real point under it is that the hard part was finding a partner willing to pay this much, not getting UW's leadership to agree to sell. Chun called it a historic long-term partnership, and Columbia Bank president Chris Merrywell said the bank is proud the stadium will become a visible part of the UW community. The deal also comes with internships, academic programming and financial education work across the university.

Why now? Because it's the revenue-share era. Schools are paying athletes directly, and every athletic department in the Big Ten is chasing new money to cover it. For Washington, $70 million of revenue that didn't exist yesterday matters a lot more than how the old name sounds. Of course, the old name is the whole reason this one stings.

Mike Vorel

@mikevorel

🎶 Just stop your crying, it’s a sign of the times … 🎶 (This is good for UW, but still sad at the same time.)

Seattle Times Sports

@SeaTimesSports

For the first time in its 126-year history, Husky Stadium will reportedly don a corporate sponsor. Here's what to know, from @ANYamashita: t.co/93sutmYPAl

That's about where most Husky fans will end up. The money is real and the program needs it, but the building has been Husky Stadium since 1920, through the renovation finished in 2013 and everything since. People will keep calling it Husky Stadium for years whatever the signs say. Still, the first fall Saturday at Columbia Bank Stadium is coming in 2027, and every other school selling its stadium name now has a new number to aim for.