Sun Dome To Get A New Name

By BRETT McMURPHY The Tampa Tribune

Published: Jul 12, 2007

TAMPA - After 27 years, the Sun Dome is getting a name change. And, in turn, a makeover will not be far behind.

Academic Financial Services is nearing a deal to purchase the naming rights to the University of South Florida's on-campus basketball arena.

The deal is expected to be between five and nine years and would be worth $500,000 to $600,000 a year.

Goodbye Sun Dome; Hello Academic Financial Services Arena.

"We're still in negotiations, but it's very close," Academic Financial Services CEO Wayne Morgan said. "I wouldn't say it's a long time away."

Action Sports Media, which was commissioned by the university to sell the naming rights, receives a percentage of the naming rights revenue. The majority, however, goes to USF, which is expected to use it to renovate the Sun Dome.

"I wanted to show our support for Tampa," Morgan said. "This was important for two reasons: being involved in the community as much as I can and supporting the Tampa Bay area as much as I can.

"And secondly, a lot of the investment will be put back into the Sun Dome to improve it. That's what most excited me - the improvement of the Sun Dome."

USF athletic director Doug Woolard was unavailable for comment Wednesday, but he has said in the past the facility would undergo major renovations, including luxury suites and new seats, once funding was acquired.

USF has been trying to sell naming rights for the Sun Dome for the past five years.

"We're excited to get this done and get revenue for the university and put a name on the building," Action Sports general manager Tom Veit said. "I think it's a great deal for the university."

The deal, which could exceed $5 million, is comparable to a recent naming rights deal at South Carolina, where the school received a $5.5 million deal over 12 years to name its basketball facility the Colonial Center.

Academic Financial Services (AFS) is a Tampa-based company with 350 employees that specializes in student loans. Morgan, 36, founded the company in 2003.

Don Hinchey, vice president of communications for the Denver-based Bonham Group, a sports and entertainment marketing firm that analyzes naming right deals, said having a student loan company associated with USF's basketball arena is a good fit.

"That category makes sense to me," Hinchey said. "That's definitely one that could resonate with prospective attendees and fans of the university."

Morgan said although no name has officially been determined for the Sun Dome, the most likely candidates are Academic Financial Services Arena, Academic Financial Services Center or Academic Financial Services Pavilion.

In the late 1970s when the Sun Dome was being constructed, then WFLA-AM radio host Jack Harris held a contest to name the facility, which opened in 1980.

There were nearly 600 entries, and a committee narrowed it to five - Sun Dome, Brahman Coliseum, Sun Arena, Suncoast Coliseum and Suncoast Spectrum. Then USF President John Lott Brown made the final decision.

Morgan said he doesn't know how people will react to the name change.

"I think it will be great," Morgan said. "I think it's phenomenal. If people don't like it or have an issue, once they see the changes they'll love it, too.

"We're in the Big East. We have to showcase ourselves now and be proud to say who we are."

AFS, whose parent company Business Financial Solutions Inc., established its national headquarters in Tampa in 2005, sponsored USF's homecoming last year and also is a sponsor of the Lightning, Storm and Devil Rays.

"I'm all the way through Bulls, Bucs, Lightning and Devil Rays," Morgan said. "Any way that involves Tampa, that's who I am."

Reporter Brett McMurphy can be reached at (813) 259-7928 or bmcmurphy@tampatrib.com.

http://www.tbo.com/sports/MGBV17FO04F.html

Rendering of the interior rennovation of Sun Dome:

http://bullsclub.usf.edu/bullsclub/images/bball%20rendering%20courtcrop%20sm.jpg

http://bullsclub.usf.edu/bullsclub/SunDome_Renderings.asp

Locker Rooms:
http://bullsclub.usf.edu/bullsclub/images/bball%20rendering%20lockerroom%20sm.jpg

Film Room:
http://bullsclub.usf.edu/bullsclub/images/bball%20rendering%20videoroom%20sm.jpg

Practice Courts:
http://bullsclub.usf.edu/bullsclub/images/bball%20rendering%20practice%20courts%20bw%20sm.jpg

CEO past is a new arena hurdle

A local student-loan company wants Sun Dome naming rights, but USF is hesitant.

By GREG AUMAN
Published July 13, 2007
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A Tampa student-loan company's pursuit of naming rights for the USF Sun Dome, which would give the university about $2-million over the next six years, faces increasing resistance that could scuttle any deal.

But sticking points occurred well before Thursday, when Academic Financial Services chief executive officer Wayne Morgan's long history of arrests became public. The school and the company it contracted to broker a deal have been bickering for months over USF's hesitance to enter into a relationship with an industry facing governmental scrutiny about its practices.

"How difficult is it to turn our backs on a half-million dollars a year? It's easy to say, 'Give me the money,' " said Steven Oscher, president of Sun Dome Inc., which manages the basketball arena. "I don't care about Mr. Morgan or AFS. My concern is we are dealing with an industry facing questions on a national level, and we have to do what's best for the university."

AFS has been in exclusive negotiations with Action Sports Media, a company hired by USF last year to sell the arena's naming rights. As those talks were made public Thursday, so too was news that Morgan, 36, has been convicted of multiple felonies, news he fears puts the sponsorship deal in greater jeopardy.

"Absolutely," Morgan said. "People will look at that and say, 'He must be a bad guy.' It's human nature. I always say it's not who you were, it's who you are."

Morgan heads a company that specializes in student-loan financing and has about 275 employees, with its headquarters on Waters Avenue. AFS is a prominent sponsor of the Rays and Lightning, and Morgan was recently honored with the Tampa Bay Sports Commission's Distinguished Community Service Award.

What Action Sports Media didn't know until Thursday was that Morgan has a long list of arrests and guilty pleas, according to public records. Records show guilty pleas from 1993-96 on charges ranging from breaking and entering and safecracking to larceny and petit theft. He has twice been charged with writing worthless checks, most recently a felony charge in 2002 to which he pleaded no contest and agreed to probation and payment of more than $19,000 in restitution. Other charges, including kidnapping and carrying a concealed weapon in 1994, were dismissed.

"I was a bad person. I did things I should not have done. ... I was young and dumb. Will I ever do anything like that again? Absolutely not," said Morgan, whose most recent probation ended in April 2005. "I will never be able to put it in my past. It's 2007 and people are asking me about it. I'll always have to talk about it."

The Rays and Lightning said Thursday that Morgan's criminal background is unlikely to change their business relationship with AFS, which sponsors a VIP club at the St. Pete Times Forum and a "college night" promotion at Tropicana Field.

"Of course that concerns us, but as long as AFS remains an upstanding sponsor, doing the right things in the community for its clients, I don't see any reason for change," Lightning spokesman Bill Wickett said.

Said Rick Vaughn, the Rays' vice president of communications, "At this point, we can only judge AFS by the experience we've had with them, and that's been very positive."

The dividing issue at USF is whether the university even has the right to veto a sponsor that Action Sports Media reaches an agreement with. As far back as May, USF and the Sun Dome had expressed in letters to Action Sports an objection to "associating ourselves, in such a prominent way, with an industry so embroiled in controversy."

Action Sports Media provided USF with $2-million in video scoreboards last year and will receive a portion of revenues from sponsorship.

In a release Thursday night, Action Sports argued that the contract it signed with USF last year does not give the university any control over the choice of a sponsor, providing the agreement is at least $400,000 a year for at least five years, or with increased advertising signs in the arena.

"Neither the university nor Sun Dome Inc. has the right to approve the sale or to reject AFS as the naming rights sponsor for the facility," Action Sports wrote.

Oscher disagrees and said USF's general counsel has reviewed the contract to back up the university's position to approve or veto a sponsor that has such a prominent place on USF's most iconic building.

"It's a legal interpretation, and our general counsel has indicated that not only do I have a right, I have an obligation," he said. "We would be remiss in many regards if we proceeded with something that has this many question marks around it."

Times researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report. Greg Auman can be reached at auman@sptimes.com or (813) 226-3346.

http://www.sptimes.com/2007/07/13/Sports/CEO_past_is_a_new_are.shtml

It would be an issue if they were naming the stadium "Wayne Morgan arena" or something. But otherwise it's a non starter. Pretty big rap sheet for a business exec though, ha.

Sun Dome naming deal off
A company backs out when its founder's past is revealed.
By JEFF TESTERMAN
Published July 18, 2007


TAMPA - A student loan company withdrew from a multimillion-dollar naming-rights deal for the University of South Florida's Sun Dome on Tuesday as questions continued to dog its chief executive about his criminal background.

Academic Financial Services, a 275-employee Tampa firm founded by Wayne Morgan, backed out of a deal to put its name on the university's arena and provide up to $2.99-million to USF over five years.

"In light of the controversy and the animosity that has come up, we regretfully have decided not to pursue the naming rights with the Sun Dome any longer," said Academic Financial's public relations director Christina Barry. "We love USF, and we will continue scholarships and other programs there, but we don't want to cause any problems in the community."

The naming-rights deal was brokered by Action Sports Media, a Tennessee firm that won the rights to award a contract after providing $1.8-million in video scoreboards to USF. But because of the scrutiny of corruption in student loan companies nationwide, USF officials balked at signing Academic Financial.

"Under the circumstances, I applaud their decision, but this has never been about AFS or Mr. Morgan," said Steven Oscher, president of Sun Dome Inc., which manages the arena. "Our concerns have always been about the student loan industry and the implications about the university and the Sun Dome."

Tuesday evening's announcement appeared to surprise Action Sports Media, which stood to gain 30 percent of the revenue from the naming-rights deal. Jerry Felix, Action Sports' chief financial officer, said he was unaware of the decision and could not comment.

The withdrawal came shortly after Morgan was fielding new questions from the St. Petersburg Times about his background and his company.

Morgan was accused by three top officers last year of misappropriating $2.58-million of the company's assets for personal use, according to a shareholder lawsuit.

The suit says Morgan bought real estate, a luxury home gym, an all-terrain vehicle racetrack, a swimming pool and vacations with company money, then directed his bookkeeper to mischaracterize the purchases as shareholder advances.

Morgan also concealed his criminal past on a Hillsborough court petition to change his name in 2003, a year before he started his student loan business, apparently giving false information under oath.

In a petition to change his name to Zachery Wayne Morgan from Roger Wayne Morgan, he cited just one felony conviction, an $18,513 worthless-check charge in 2002 in Tampa that led to a violation of probation when he failed to make restitution payments.

But North Carolina records show Morgan was also convicted in 1994 of safecracking, larceny and breaking and entering - all felonies. Morgan never followed through with the name change, but he signed the petition under oath, attesting that he understood "the punishment for knowingly making a false statement includes fines and/or imprisonment."

Tuesday, Morgan denied misappropriating company funds, said he couldn't remember what he had put down on the name-change petition and bridled at criticism he has received after receiving the naming rights on the Sun Dome.

"I've made some poor decisions in the past, and I've paid for them," said Morgan, 36, who has spent lavishly on sports sponsorships for Tampa Bay's Lightning, Devil Rays and Buccaneers. "Now, I don't even spit on the sidewalk if I'm going to get in trouble.

"I was trying to help the d--- Sun Dome. It needs an overhaul. I was trying to do some good."

Tuesday, the St. Petersburg Times also obtained records showing the U.S. Department of Labor opened an investigation into reports of irregularities involving 401k payroll deductions at Academic Financial Services in 2006.

One complaint was brought by Bill Russell, 59, a former call-center supervisor at Morgan's student loan company, according to a letter from Labor Department investigators. Russell kept pay stubs showing he contributed more than $3,000 to his 401(k) retirement account, then received an account statement showing a balance of $418.

When he questioned the whereabouts of his 401(k) money, Russell said he was fired.

"I called the Labor Department because I considered this was just stealing," Russell said.

Meanwhile, the shareholder suit brought against Morgan and Academic Financial's parent company, Business Financial Solutions, makes other allegations of financial improprieties. Suing were former chief financial officer Michael Murray, former marketing director Matthew Steingraber and his wife, Danielle Steingraber, the former personnel director, who were recruited by Morgan to run the fledgling student loan company in 2004.

Their suit says that more than 500 payroll checks bounced while Morgan was spending $50,000 for artwork in executive offices at 5463 W Waters Ave., $100,000 for an interior designer to redecorate the executive conference room, $45,000 for company trips to Colorado and the Bahamas, and $15,000 to reserve Adventure Island for a company outing.

Morgan also put his wife on the payroll at $46,800 a year and provided leased company cars to her and his brother-in-law, though neither seemed to perform any work, the suit says.

The cash flow became so desperate, the suit says, that Morgan was forced to sell a portion of Academic Financial's student loans at a significant discount, reducing revenue by more than a combined $19-million in 2005 and 2006.

Morgan fired back with a countersuit, claiming his three top executives violated non-compete agreements when they destroyed records and took trade secrets with them while resigning en masse to open a student loan company in 2006 called Atlas Education Finance.

Morgan and the plaintiffs settled their lawsuit in March, dismissing all claims.

"They were my friends, and they wanted a piece of the company, so I made them shareholders," said Morgan. "I gave them everything they wanted.

"But their allegations that I misappropriated money? That's not true. Absolutely."

Times staff writer Greg Auman and researcher John Martin contributed to this report. Jeff Testerman can be reached at testerman@sptimes.com or (813) 226-3422.

http://www.sptimes.com/2007/07/18/Hillsborough/Sun_Dome_naming_deal_.shtml