ULM is renaming Malone Stadium to FMOL Health St. Francis Stadium as part of an expanded partnership with the healthcare ministry. Warhawks Athletics Director SJ Tuohy says that the partnership will help balance the athletics budget and provide opportunities for student-athletes moving forward.
“St. Francis was certainly a sponsor of us in the past and has been for years; they’ve been a staple in our community. We accounted for new opportunities when we got here. We listed our venues and revenue pathways, and found what was important to them and what we thought could help us. It’s something we’ve worked on for the last couple of months. We’re very excited about the future with them,” Tuohy said.
St. Francis will continue to be the “Official Medical Partner” of ULM athletics, and Tuohy says it was important to partner with a local organization committed to building the Northeast Louisiana community.
“It’s important for a lot of different things. We want to operate at a lower deficit. We want to maintain and improve our facilities; from a student-athlete success point, whether that’s nutrition budgets or gear or retention. It provides some flexibility now, with the addition of a couple of new corporate sponsors, as to where we can allocate those funds to best fit in the current year and help us to project out for the next four or five years; things that we need to improve,” Tuohy explained.
ULM also agreed to a deal to rename its basketball arena to b1BANK Fant Coliseum. Tuohy says the corporate partnerships are an exciting opportunity that spans across the athletics department.
“B1 has the basketball arena, but they also have jersey patches on the baseball jerseys, for example. St. Francis has a jersey patch for all of the women’s sports across the board. So it’s multi-tiered; B1 has logos on the football field. It crosses different teams and departments, and all have collaborations with both of those groups; and, hopefully, a couple more in the future. It’s exciting to have those groups involved with us,” Tuohy noted.
ULM will honor coach James Malone, who the football stadium was previously named after, with a new installation at the home entrance.