Florida International University has always been the little brother. Whether it be losing by 40 to FAU in the Shula Bowl or even getting people to recognize it as the actual school located in Miami, FIU has always been on the losing side of these battles.
That is, until today. FIU announced a deal with rapper Pitbull to name their football stadium after Mr. Worldwide.
In a deal that will give the university $1.2 million each year over the next five years, the stadium will become Pitbull Stadium and according to The Athletic’s Chris Vannini, the rapper will be a part of multiple promotional tools and initiatives with FIU, including:
- An FIU anthem created by Pitbull (I’m assuming it’ll be similar to his hit song “Fireball”)
- Pitbull being named the official entrepreneur of FIU athletics (whatever that means)
- A “Pitbull-affiliated performer” at all games (no idea, but sure)
- He gets to use the stadium up to 10 days per year
- Gets two suites for all football games
Pretty sick perks for an exchange of a little over $5 million, but still there’s a lot of questions to be asked. What does he mean by official entrepreneur? The anthem has to be really good, or else this whole thing is null and void.
Even though FIU is FIU, this is kinda cool. I appreciate that they’re going all in on making themselves the real Miami school, unlike the other university in Coral Gables. This will hopefully get more people into that stadium as well, something the football team can’t really do.
Could Pitbull change the song “Hotel Room Service” to “Football Stadium Service”? “I Know You Want Me” could now become about the Panthers wanting the ball. So many possibilities in the Pitbull-verse.
FIU can’t mess this up, or else it’ll go down, and people will yell Timber (sorry).
