Pitbull Stadium is the new home of FIU football. The artist has bought the naming rights

Welcome to Pitbull Stadium, the house of your FIU Panthers.

Florida Worldwide introduced what might find yourself as a 10-year settlement on Tuesday with worldwide recording artist, Grammy winner and entrepreneur Armando Christian Pérez — the Miami native higher referred to as Pitbull — to place his title on their on-campus stadium.

Pérez can pay $1.2 million yearly for the subsequent 5 years, the college stated, for the naming rights. He could have an possibility in August 2029 to increase the deal for one more 5 years and proceed the rebranding.

“Sure, we’re going to create historical past in Pitbull Stadium,” Pérez stated throughout a information convention in Miami. “This isn’t simply an announcement. This can be a motion. That is really historical past within the making.”

FIU stated it’s the first settlement the place an artist possesses the naming rights to a stadium. Pérez may even be concerned with FIU’s efforts within the title, picture and likeness area, athletic director Scott Carr stated.

“This can be a historic day for FIU athletics to uniquely accomplice with a world-renowned artist and superb one that really values relationships and his group,” Carr stated. “Armando’s monetary assist is program-changing, however him offering a microphone to amplify FIU might be much more useful to rising our model.”

As a part of the deal, Pérez will get use of the stadium for 10 days annually rent-free, with some tickets to these occasions to be put aside for FIU college students. A vodka model he owns might be a most well-liked model on the stadium going ahead, he’ll obtain use of two suites and 20 VIP parking passes for FIU soccer dwelling video games, and he’s being requested to create an “FIU Anthem” to be performed on the college’s athletic contests.

“It’s a real blessing, a real honor,” Pérez stated. “Let’s make historical past.”

Pitbull — who additionally goes by “Mr. 305,” a nod to Miami’s space code — kicked off his music profession within the South Florida rap scene round 2004, finally turning into one of many world’s most acknowledged artists.

“Pitbull’s profession trajectory mirrors FIU’s ascent as one of many nation’s prime public analysis universities,” FIU President Kenneth A. Jessell stated. “Like FIU, he began out very 305 and have become worldwide.”

Pérez has been a longtime proponent of supporting schooling in South Florida. FIU stated he based the primary SLAM! (Sports activities Management, Arts, and Administration) tuition-free public constitution college in Miami in 2012.

“That is about uniting everyone,” he stated. “That is about bringing everyone collectively. … Arduous work is what pays off. They inform me, ‘You so fortunate.’ Properly, the more durable I work, the luckier I get.”

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