The Ohio State men’s basketball game against Mount St. Mary’s on Nov. 25 could be the last of its kind.
One day before the showdown between the Buckeyes and the Mountaineers, the privately owned Columbus parent company of Value City Furniture filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. While that obviously has an impact on the company’s retail locations, it also will have an impact on the multipurpose facility that Ohio State’s men’s and women’s basketball and men’s hockey teams call home.
The men’s basketball game will be played at Value City Arena inside the Jerome Schottenstein Center, just like every other game since the facility opened for the 1998-99 season. But going forward, the plans are to eventually phase out the arena’s name while working with the Schottenstein family to seek new potential naming rights or sponsorships for the facility.
It is not yet known when any potential new naming rights or plans for them will be determined.
As the university was building the multipurpose facility, the Schottenstein family gave Ohio State a $12.5 million contribution to affix the name “Value City” to the arena that was housed inside the building with their name on it. That donation was made before ground was broken on the facility and was part of more than $25 million in donations to help get the project going.
At the time, Ohio State president Gordon Gee described the donation as “a tremendous gesture” by a family “whose generosity has been demonstrated for years.” Of that $12.5 million gift, $11.3 million was from a family-owned foundation, $1.1 million came from Value City Furniture and the remaining $100,000 from Schottenstein Stores.
The Schottenstein Center is named for the late Jerome Schottenstein.
Ohio State men’s basketball beat writer Adam Jardy can be reached at ajardy@dispatch.com, on Bluesky at @cdadamjardy.bsky.social or on Twitter at @AdamJardy.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: What will happen to the naming rights to Ohio State’s Value City Arena?
Reporting by Adam Jardy, Columbus Dispatch / The Columbus Dispatch
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
