Texas Tech Athletics has completed one of the more significant college football naming rights agreements in recent memory. The program’s football venue, known for decades as Jones AT&T Stadium, will carry a new name starting with the 2026 season. The deal puts digital assets and infrastructure company Galaxy on the building, and the facility will now be called Galaxy Stadium.
Texas Tech announced the partnership as a 15-year agreement beginning this fall. The Red Raiders open at home under the new name on September 5 against Abilene Christian. Financial terms were not spelled out in the school’s release, but the deal has been reported at roughly $75 million over the life of the contract, a figure that traces back to Sports Business Journal’s reporting on the agreement.
The stadium’s previous name traced back much further than the AT&T branding most fans knew. The building opened in 1947 and was named for Clifford B. Jones, Texas Tech’s third president. AT&T attached its name to the venue years later, and that arrangement lapsed after the telecom company chose not to renew it. Texas Tech had gone without an active naming rights revenue stream tied to the stadium for a stretch, which made finding a new partner a budget priority rather than a cosmetic exercise.
Galaxy’s involvement goes beyond signage. The agreement makes the company the athletic department’s official data center and digital assets partner, with branding extending into other athletic programs through in-game features and social content. Student-athletes also gain NIL opportunities tied to the partnership, continuing a trend of naming rights deals doubling as recruiting and revenue tools for athletic departments navigating the post-revenue-sharing era of college sports.
Galaxy founder and CEO Mike Novogratz explained why the company targeted Lubbock for this kind of investment. “Texas Tech is exactly the kind of institution we want to be aligned with. It has a culture built on grit and loyalty, one of the strongest talent pipelines in the country and a fan base in Red Raider Nation that shows up with real intensity,” Novogratz said. Galaxy also operates a large AI and high-performance computing data center campus in Dickens County, roughly 60 miles from the Texas Tech campus, giving the partnership a regional business logic beyond simple branding.
Where the Texas Tech agreement stands out is in scale relative to its conference peers. Arizona’s football stadium was renamed Casino Del Sol Stadium late last year under a 20-year, $60 million deal with the Pascua Yaqui Tribe, a contract the school called the largest in Big 12 history at the time. Arizona State’s Sun Devil Stadium became Mountain America Stadium in 2023 under a 15-year, $50 million arrangement. If the reported $75 million figure for Texas Tech holds up, the Red Raiders would now hold the conference’s largest naming rights agreement by total value. Texas Tech’s stadium seats close to 60,000 fans, keeping it among the larger venues in the conference footprint.
The timing fits a broader pattern across American sports business this year. NFL naming rights have also been in motion, with the Carolina Panthers extending their Bank of America Stadium arrangement in July, a deal covered in our look at Panthers stadium investment. Columbus Crew, meanwhile, lost the Lower.com Field name and is now searching for a new soccer partner. College and pro venues alike are treating naming rights as a recurring negotiation rather than a one-time sale, and Texas Tech’s deal shows how those numbers keep climbing. For more context on how this contract compares historically, see our ranking of the biggest stadium naming rights deals.
For Texas Tech, the deal solves a budget gap that had lingered since AT&T’s exit and gives the athletic department a long-term partner with deep pockets in the data and digital assets space. For Galaxy, it buys visibility in West Texas and a direct line to a fan base its own executive described as showing up with real intensity. Either way, Galaxy Stadium will be the new backdrop for Red Raider football when the season opens in September.
