LetsGoDU

North Dakota Plays In Rented Arena

From: The Dakota Student (UND Student Newspaper)
by Kyle Johnson

UND plays home games at some of the nation's finest athletic facilities, especially in hockey and football. These same facilities, however, also make UND stand out for a different reason: The majority of UND's athletic programs play and practice at facilities not owned by the school.

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The Ralph Engelstad Arena and Betty Engelstad Sioux Center - home to volleyball, basketball and hockey - are currently owned by Ralph Engelstad Arena, Inc., a non-profit corporation.

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This system was created when Ralph Engelstad announced his donation paying for the arena. The original agreement called for UND to take ownership of the facility on Sept. 30, 2030, although that handover could come sooner.

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The Alerus Center is owned by the city of Grand Forks. The UND football team plays and sometimes practices there.

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The baseball team plays at Kraft Field and the softball squad calls Ulland Park home. The Grand Forks Park District owns both facilities. The tennis team also plays at a city-owned facility, the Center Court Fitness Club.

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Bob Boyd, UND vice president of student and outreach services and chair of the NCAA Classification Commission, said UND's situation is unique in several ways.

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"When the task force was examining a move to Division I, what was unusual was to take your major revenue-generating sports and have them in facilities you don't control," he said.

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Most other schools the task force looked at owned the facilities for the largest sports, such as hockey, football and basketball. Many other schools use shared or rented facilities for smaller sports, however, such as baseball.

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UND's situation is fairly new, as the Alerus, REA and Betty Engelstad Sioux Center all opened in recent years and moved sports out of campus facilities.

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A wet part of campus

The major problem of UND's athletic situation has to do with its alcohol policy. UND is a dry campus, and all buildings on campus are alcohol-free. When the REA opened, however, UND officials were unable to prevent alcohol sales in that facility, and instead had to settle for a compromise."

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If the university had its choice, we probably would not serve alcohol," said Bob Gallager, UND vice president of finance and operations. "But there's a give-and-take there. You can't take alcohol into the student section at the hockey games."

"Ideally, the sporting events would provide an alternative to alcohol," Boyd said.

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The Alerus Center is city-owned and located off-campus, so it too sells alcohol during UND sporting events.

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In addition to the alcohol aspect of the facilities, they also present scheduling problems. The UND-REA agreement says that the hockey game schedule takes priority over other events; however, the REA's other events, such as concerts, can and do interfere with practice schedules.

Scheduling can also be problematic for football practice at the Alerus Center, because UND pays a fee for each practice.

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Boyd said UND officials have "great cooperation" with officials from both facilities, and said that scheduling hasn't been a big problem yet.

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"The coaches would always like to schedule more time in the facilities," Gallager said. "If they need something, we give it to them.

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"The outside ownership of the facilities also impacts the games' profits. UND pays a set fee to the Alerus for each game and then splits ticket revenue. At the REA, ticket revenue is also split, with the REA's portion going to pay for the operational costs of the arena.

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D-I solution

Time should help to change UND's current situation, school officials said.

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By 2030, the Engelstad complex will be owned by UND. School officials have also talked in recent months about building new basketball and football facilities in next few decades, moving those sports back to UND facilities.

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"The ownership of these facilities is not the issue. The capacity of the facilities is the bigger concern," Boyd said. "We'll do fine with hockey, but as we move to Division I and our teams become competitive, it's very possible that at some point the Betty will no longer hold all the spectators."

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Boyd added that the Alerus could become too small to house all the football fans as UND starts competing against top Division I teams.

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"The good news is that we have at least a half-decade if not more to work through those issues," he said.

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Although the REA could change hands before the 2030 deadline, it appears unlikely to happen anytime soon.

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"There's lots of water left to go under the bridge before we get to that," said Jodi Hodgson, general manager of the REA, adding that no discussions on the handover have been held since he began his job 18 months ago.