Miami AD: Hurricanes ‘very proud’ to play at Hard Rock, focusing on campus facility upgrades
University of Miami athletic director Dan Radakovich had barely been in Coral Gables when he was asked last December if he had considered a football home for the Miami Hurricanes closer to campus than Hard Rock Stadium.
“I guess I’ve been very fortunate,’’ Radakovich, the highly respected former Clemson athletic director said just days after replacing Miami AD Blake James. “At all the places I’ve worked we’ve had a campus stadium or a near-campus stadium... So, if that’s something that can happen we’re going to pursue it to its logical conclusion.”
For now, the logical conclusion is that Hard Rock Stadium, also home to the Miami Dolphins, is the place the Hurricanes will stay.
“We have a great relationship with Hard Rock Stadium,’’ Radakovich told reporters Tuesday after football practice. “That’s first and foremost. They really help us with our program and we’re very proud to play there. We have 10 or 11 years on a contract that we have with them. So our focus right now is not as much where we play those seven games a year. Our focus is on those 358 days a year that our student-athletes are here getting instruction, having nutrition, weight room, sports medicine. We’re focusing on that right now, not where we might be able to play.”
Radakovich’s priority now is raising enough money — he won’t specify how much — for a “football operations center, what he calls “the forever home of University of Miami football.’’
He said UM is “well on our way moving forward with that. We’re going to start — and have started, in kind of a silent phase — our fundraising for that project. And it’s going incredibly well. As the fall unfolds, we’ll have a little bit more of a public-facing focus on that, a little opening for where that’s going to go. But rest assured, that is Priority 1 that we’re working on.
“We’ve found some space here on campus to be able to do that. It’s important that we utilize the facility that we’re standing in, the Carol Soffer Indoor Facility, as well as expanding it a full field’s circumstance [to 100 yards]. So lots going on right now, and [we] feel really energized about where it’s heading.”
Radakovich said he hopes to have a timeline for the facility “really soon.”
Radakovich was announced as the AD on Dec. 9, three days after former Oregon coach Mario Cristobal was hired as Miami’s coach in a 10-year, $80 million deal, per multiple sources. Radakovich reportedly earned $1.3 million in 2021 and has a package worth close to $2 million annually at Miami.
Since then, UM has spent millions upgrading its coaching and support staff. Radakovich was asked if he were sure he has “enough resources for all this.’’
“I haven’t found anything that has taken me away from that — the idea that the resources are here,’’ Radakovich said. “Now, let’s be clear, we have to go out and raise some money in this community.and we have to go out and raise some money with people who have been a part of our program to one level. We may need to kick them up a notch to get to the next level and have those dollars to be able to put together the bricks and mortar. But there has been nothing over the six months that I’ve been here that has dissuaded me from the fact that yes, that can happen, and we have the opportunity to move forward.”
More from Radakovich:
▪ On season tickets: More than 35,000 season tickets have been sold, up about 6,000 from last year, he said, and up “a couple hundred” since last week. “The goal is to sell them all, for sure,’’ he said, “and that’d be somewhere in the 46-to-47,000 range” after taking off “student tickets, visitor tickets and player parents, etc. — that’s the total season tickets we can sell.”
Radakovich said “well over 50,000 tickets” have been distributed for Saturday’s home opener. It’s unclear how many of those were sold.
▪ On continuing the growth of the football staff: “We have more quality control people, more analysts, than we’ve had before. Football operations has grown a little bit. But that’s not unique to the University of Miami. That’s what’s happened in college football over the last five to seven years. Staffs have gotten bigger. So we’ll continue to make sure that it’s right-sized for what we need, so Mario and I continue to have those conversations.”
▪ On the direction of college football regarding super conferences and how UM fits in: “It’s well-known [the ACC] has a grant of rights. Our TV contract goes through ‘36. We need to do things within the conference that allow our members to continue to be competitive. And those are the things that we’re working on right now with our league office....You see the SEC and where they’ve moved forward. You see the Big Ten and where they’ve moved forward. I think it’s time now for the ACC to really look in and see where we can take the next step in our league — whether it’s staying within the number of teams we have right now or expanding it. So, our presidents and the league office in Greensboro [North Carolina] continue to work on that quite vigorously.”
▪ On whether UM would have interest in exploring the Big Ten or Southeastern Conference if one of those conferences were interested in adding Miami: “Well, right now it’s a circumstance where we have a grant of rights with the ACC, and until something changes along those lines that’s a lot of work going down a path that probably can’t happen because of the legalities.”
▪ On Cristobal: “I couldn’t be happier. I mean, Mario, he’s a pro. He’s done this before. He’s been a head coach at a couple of different places... He’s a native son. He played here. So he knows a lot about this organization and how we’re trying to evolve it. We talk very, very frequently about things that are moving on in his program, how administratively we can help make that happen.”
This story was originally published August 30, 2022 at 3:06 PM.
