{"id":60961,"date":"2025-11-19T22:17:06","date_gmt":"2025-11-19T22:17:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/60961\/"},"modified":"2025-11-19T22:17:06","modified_gmt":"2025-11-19T22:17:06","slug":"cal-state-approves-renaming-walter-pyramid-in-8-5-million-sponsorship-deal-long-beach-post-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/60961\/","title":{"rendered":"Cal State approves renaming Walter Pyramid in $8.5 million sponsorship deal\u00a0 \u2022 Long Beach Post News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Cal State University board of trustees <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=CRmr7t2USpE\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">voted today to approve<\/a> an $8.5 million sponsorship deal with LBS Financial Credit Union and rename the Walter Pyramid.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.calstate.edu\/csu-system\/board-of-trustees\/past-meetings\/2025\/Documents\/Nov-17-19-2025-IA.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">agreement<\/a> to dub the arena the LBS Financial Pyramid will last 12 years, but the funds will be delivered upfront, allowing the university immediate access to the dollars that will bring Beach Athletics into a new era, said Bobby Smitheran, Long Beach State athletic director.<\/p>\n<p>Smitheran said Long Beach State plans to look strategically across the student athlete experience and identify the greatest needs, both short and long term, from <a href=\"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/news\/the-walter-pyramids-leaky-roof-would-cost-an-estimated-55m-to-fully-repair\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">overdue facility improvements<\/a> to scholarship enhancements to special projects, the <a href=\"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/news\/walter-pyramid-renaming-long-beach-state\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Long Beach Post previously reported<\/a>. Ten percent of the gift will go to the Campus Activities Fund; the rest is earmarked for athletics.<\/p>\n<p>The NCAA landscape has changed dramatically over the history of the university\u2019s iconic stadium. Long Beach architect Don Gibbs designed the pyramid \u2014 <a href=\"https:\/\/sites.csulb.edu\/sites\/beachmag\/2014\/12\/mike-and-arline-walter-pyramid-20th-anniversary\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">one of only four<\/a> in the country \u2014 which was <a href=\"https:\/\/longbeachstate.com\/facilities\/walter-pyramid\/2\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">completed in 1994 and cost $22 million<\/a>. A decade later, Mike and Arline Walter, longtime supporters of the university, donated $2 million to defray the cost, and the pyramid bore their name.<\/p>\n<p>Since then, newly allowed revenue-sharing opportunities and expanded scholarship opportunities in nearly every sport have forced the university to \u201clook at every revenue-generating opportunity possible,\u201d Smitheran said.<\/p>\n<p>He hopes this sponsorship will \u201cmaximize our potential for winning championships\u201d and be a \u201crallying point for our campus and the larger Long Beach Community.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Barbara Kingsley-Wilson, CSULB lecturer and author of multiple books on the university\u2019s history, said the renaming is \u201ca big deal,\u201d but the soaring costs of college athletics mean \u201cit\u2019s not that surprising.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Cal State University board of trustees voted today to approve an $8.5 million sponsorship deal with LBS&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60962,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[131,133,132],"class_list":["post-60961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60961\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}