Banker Suggests Tax Exemption Allowed CU to Outbid Banks for Naming Rights to Stadium

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark.–One banker is suggesting an Arkansas bank might have been able to afford naming rights to the football stadium that is home to the state’s flagship program if banks also had a tax exemption like credit unions.

As the CU Daily reported here, Kansas-based CommunityAmerica Credit Union and the University of Arkansas have entered into a long-term partnership that will rename Donald W. Reynolds Razorback Stadium as CommunityAmerica Razorback Stadium beginning with the 2027 football season.

According to a report by Whole Hog Sports, it is the most lucrative deal of its kind in college football, with the agreement worth a total of $70 million over 13 years, for an average of about $5.4 million annually.

In an interview with Arkansas Business, Jason Tennant, the president and chief lending officer of CS Bank of Eureka Springs and the new chairman of the Arkansas Bankers Association, said he didn’t like an out-of-state entity winning the sponsorship, but he also understood the economics of the decision. 

“Call me old school, but I hate the fact it’s something from Kansas on Razorback Stadium,” he told the publication. “More power to them. They are the ones that wrote the check.”

Bank Could Have Been Sponsor, But…

But Tennant said he also had another issue, with the publication noting that bankers “frequently lament that credit unions are regulated differently.”

Tennant suggested one unnamed Arkansas bank reportedly made an unsuccessful offer to be the naming sponsor.

“I can promise you that bank in Arkansas, if they didn’t have to pay taxes, they could afford a bigger check,” he told Arkansas Business.