It wasn't until 2013 that UA athletic director Greg Byrne noticed there wasn't an identifying name at his school's football stadium. Nowhere was there a prominent "Arizona Stadium" sign and there hadn't been for most of the previous 50 years.
Byrne made sure that construction of the $75-million Lowell-Stevens Football Facility included an "Arizona Stadium" sign, although someone arriving for Saturday's UA-Baylor game probably didn't see it. It's semi-hidden on the northwest arm of the Lowell-Stevens Football Facility, visible only if you're, say, approaching the stadium from the UA Main Library or from tailgating on the UA mall.
On Sixth Street, the word "ARIZONA" is embedded in the concrete to the right and left of the huge scoreboard, letters from the 1950s when Navajo Hall dormitory was built. That's it.
I strongly suspect UA athletic director Desireé Reed-Francois will display "Casino Del Sol Stadium" logos to be seen on Sixth Street, National Championship Drive and possibly all four sides of the ancient structure.
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From left to right, Amanda Sampson Lomayesva, CEO of Casino del Sol, Desiree Reed-Francois, director of Arizona Athletics and Julian Hernandez, chairman of the Pascua Yaqui Tribe, hold up football jerseys at the conclusion of a press conference at Casino Del Sol Stadium on November 17, 2025. It was announced on Monday that the University of Arizona football’s venue will be named Casino Del Sol Stadium.
In researching the construction and dedication of Arizona Stadium, 1929, I found that there was never any formal declaration of the name "Arizona Stadium."
Newspaper accounts of the first two years of the stadium, 1929 and 1930, always referred to it as "the University of Arizona stadium." There was no capital letter on "stadium." Such as: the Sept. 14, 1930 statement "all home games will be played at the University of Arizona stadium" and a month later, "the Wildcats will meet the Texas School of Mines this afternoon at the new University of Arizona stadium."
At the formal dedication of the stadium, Oct. 12, 1929, the Star wrote "The city's first skyscraper is being formally opened at the university's new stadium."
Indeed, the stadium originally had eight sections on the west side, all of them reaching 34 rows. That was a skyscraper to Tucson 100 years ago.
It makes historical sense for Arizona to name the stadium for an enterprise operated by the Pascua Yaqui Tribe. The stadium is, after all, surrounded by dormitories named for the Native American culture: Navajo, Hopi, Cochise, Pima, Apache and so on. History lives on. A year ago, UA Hall of Fame safety Chuck Cecil’s daughter, Charli, lived in the Navajo dorm in the south end zone. It's the same dormitory that legendary UA running back Art Luppino lived in during the mid-1950s.
To me, the perfect name for UA's football stadium would be Pascua Yaqui Stadium. Inside, on the turf, would be "Casino Del Sol Field." But that's not how you raise $60 million in a fiscally-challenged era of college sports.
Times have changed. In the 1990s, the Pac-10 viewed Las Vegas as a sinister operation as it related to college sports. It would not agree to stage a post-season basketball tournament there because of sports betting. Now San Diego State plays basketball in Viejas Arena, owned by the Kumeyaay Tribe of Southern California. The NFL New Orleans Saints play in Caesar's Superdome, part of the Caesar's Palace operation. The NHL Minnesota Wild play in Grand Casino Arena.
What comes next is Arizona's inevitable renaming of McKale Center. I suspect it will be like UCLA renaming their hallowed basketball arena "Pauley Pavilion presented by Wescom Financial."
The Los Angeles credit union paid $38 million to get its name on the floor at Pauley, a deal that runs from 2018-28. UCLA was wise to put "Wooden Court" in more prominent letters on the floor to maintain its connection to history.
The UA would do well to put a larger sign to identify McKale Center. Right now, the only visible identifying name at the arena is "McKale Center Ticket Office."

