When the Arizona Cardinals play their last down in Sun Devil Stadium at the end of the 2005 season, don't expect any tears from the ASU athletic department or administration.
True, a cash flow - ASU officials said in 2001 that annual revenue from the Cardinals and the Fiesta Bowl was about $630,000 - that the University has enjoyed for nearly two decades will be gone. True, Sunday football will no longer happen in Tempe.
But ASU officials said these bonuses were never a deciding factor in ASU's choice to share Sun Devil Stadium with the Cardinals. The income, and the splendor of professional football, will be gone, but so will a burden that grew from workable to unbearable during 15-plus years of sharing a stadium, officials said.
Some have called the relationship strained, while one reporter who has covered both the Cardinals and ASU called the situation simply bad.
When relations falter between couples, divorce is usually on the way. If only it were that simple for ASU and the Cardinals.
Unusual circumstances
The relationship was tense from the beginning, but for reasons that very few people are willing to discuss, ASU and the Cardinals became partners in 1988, when owner Bill Bidwill moved the football team from St. Louis, Mo., to Tempe.
The arrangement brought the National Football League to Arizona for the first time, but under circumstances that former ASU President J. Russell Nelson called unusual.
"It was clear that [the Cardinals were] competition with the ASU team, and on the other hand, it was clear that [Sun Devil Stadium] was the only place to play and the community wanted a football team," said Nelson, ASU President from 1981 to 1989.
The arrival of professional football in the Valley meant some fans who weren't dedicated ASU supporters would choose to buy season tickets from the new show in town.
Community pressure for a professional football team might have been the reason relations between the two organizations went awry. Newspaper articles from 1988 indicate that Bidwill may have been promised a new stadium for his team upon relocation.
Those promises were never in the form of a contractual agreement. Maricopa County voters approved a $355 million publicly funded stadium for the Cardinals in 2000. It will open for the 2006 season.
The groundbreaking for the new Cardinals stadium in Glendale was the first checkpoint on the path for the separation of the football team and the University.
Unexpected stay
When negotiations for a downtown Phoenix multipurpose stadium collapsed in September 1989, it became evident that the Cardinals' stay in Sun Devil Stadium was going to be much longer than originally expected.
Problems with getting a stadium have followed Bidwill and the Cardinals for more than half a century, and the frustration over stadium issues made playing in a decades-old college stadium worse.
The Cardinals came to Tempe from St. Louis because Bidwill felt that Busch Stadium, where the Cardinals shared the field with the Major League Baseball Cardinals, was too small.
The only choice for ASU and the Cardinals was to make the situation work and the Cardinals signed a 30-year contract with the option to renew every five years, according to former ASU President Lattie Coor.
Nelson, who retired in 1989, called the relationship at that time "reasonably amicable."
"I don't think the relationship was unpleasant at the level of negotiations," he said. "But at the same time, it's an unusual thing for a pro team to play in a college stadium. To a large extent, we were feeling our way as we went. We were breaking new ground."
Legal battle
The University and the Cardinals are locked in a lawsuit over improvements to the stadium that were funded, in part, by advertising signs. ASU could end up losing millions if it loses the court battle.
The Arizona Republic reported that the Cardinals filed the suit on Nov. 16, 2000, nine days after voters approved the team's new stadium.
In June 2003, an arbitrator dismissed the $21 million claim over the signage, but also ruled that the Cardinals could seek damages from advertising dollars accruing since 1999.
The team continues to seek $11.9 million in damages from the University, the Republic reported.
Cardinals officials did not return calls for this story, but Michael Bidwill, the Cardinals vice president and general counsel, told The Arizona Republic in May 2003 his opinion of the legality of the situation surrounding the advertising deals that ASU made to fund renovations to the stadium.
"We were damaged and had millions of dollars in lost revenue, and they profited," he said. "They did not have a legal right to the revenues they collected, and we are asking for them back."
Coor said he felt negotiations over the disputed advertising dollars were going smoothly, considering the complexity of the arrangement.
"But obviously, the Cardinals thought otherwise," he said. The lawsuit has been the most public disagreement between the organizations, but is only the tip of a very large conflict that has finally boiled over.
East Valley Tribune sportswriter Bob Moran, who has covered ASU athletics and the Arizona Cardinals, said the bad blood between the University and the Cardinals isn't a small conflict that's been blown out of proportion and instead is every bit as big as people suspect.
"That's not a perception, that's the truth," Moran said. "The Cardinals were forced to stay at ASU longer than they anticipated, and ASU saw the Cardinals as a threat to the sports market in this town."
Differing views
Lattie Coor, ASU president from 1990 to 2001, said ASU was being a "good citizen" when it welcomed the Cardinals into Sun Devil Stadium. He added that the community wanted a football team and ASU wanted to accommodate that demand.
Because Sun Devil Stadium was the only place in the Valley for a professional football team to play, ASU and the Cardinals became partners. It seems the trouble began at this point, when both sides saw the relationship from a different point of view.
Coor said the arrangement with the football team wasn't made because of income to the University, and Nelson made it clear that ASU was trying to appease the Valley by hosting the Cardinals.
Despite the virtual guarantee that a professional football team would be a threat to ASU football supremacy in the Valley, the University tried to make do with the situation, Moran said.
The Cardinals took a different stance on the issue, and Coor said the organization made it very clear that Sun Devil Stadium was a temporary home.
"The Cardinals wished they had their own stadium," Coor said. "They made it clear that there were many features of Sun Devil Stadium that were unsatisfactory."
Sun Devil Stadium's natural-grass field and open-air bleachers were appealing to Gene Stallings, head coach of the Cardinals when the team relocated. Stallings told The Arizona Republic in 1988 that he liked the prospect of playing on natural grass and in front of a larger crowd than the team was used to in Busch Stadium.
The natural grass became a full-time job for stadium crews as two football teams roamed the sidelines. Former ASU star quarterback Jake Plummer, who also played for the Cardinals from 1997 to 2003, said the crews did a good job keeping the field maintained.
"Usually after ASU, the Cardinals and high school championship games [in December], it was torn up," Plummer said.
He added that the crew usually made the switch from ASU to Cardinal colors as flawless as possible.
Nelson said ASU tried to accommodate their new neighbors by keeping the natural-grass field well maintained.
"We had not, as a general practice, had multiple football teams playing on the grass, which was something that needed attention," he said.
Coor said the teams shared the stadium in a fair manner and said the Cardinals cooperated on issues involving football operations.
One stadium, two teams
But the Cardinals saw the stadium in a different way, and Plummer said he noticed the attitude coming from the professional team during his years at the University.
"When I was at ASU, I didn't like [sharing the field] at all. [The Cardinals] were always saying [Sun Devil Stadium] wasn't an adequate enough stadium," Plummer said. "I was upset because it's a great stadium for the college level."
But Plummer said his view of the situation shifted once he took the field as a Cardinal. After playing in other professional stadiums, Plummer said he started to see the inadequacies in the college stadium.
"I think it's the best college stadium, but it's not good for professional football," Plummer said about the lack of suites, facilities and other amenities. "I had a little bit of mixed feelings about that."
The University and the Cardinals combined their efforts on several stadium improvements including installing auxiliary scoreboards in 1991 and upgrading the press box and suites.
The Cardinals also paid for the locker room on the north side of the stadium in an effort to bring the building to professional standards.
"We still liked the stadium," Coor said. "Even as the University offered several options to improve the existing stadium or a rather substantial expansion of the existing stadium, the Cardinals made it very clear that they wanted their own stadium."
The fact that the Cardinals didn't have their own stadium was one of the factors that Coor said led to a decline in the relationship with ASU. Moran said that being a tenant in the stadium probably wore on the organization.
"When you're renting, you don't have control over the stadium. You have to ask permission to paint the locker rooms," Moran said.
The quest for a stadium built solely for the Cardinals has become the obsession of Bidwill. The team has shared stadiums since 1922, when the Cardinals shared Comiskey Park with baseball's Chicago White Sox.
Beginning of the end
Coor said although the Cardinals made it clear that they wanted their own stadium, the team didn't voice serious concerns with the University when problems came up.
"The University was continuing on the premise of good faith during that time," Coor said. He added that the Cardinals perceived the relationship otherwise.
Though the team will be out of Tempe by 2006, the end of the team's partnership with ASU might not come fast enough. Mark Brand, associate athletic director at ASU, said the University has already started thinking about life after the Cardinals. However, he emphasized that any fundraising campaigns or improvements to the stadium would only happen after ASU Athletics erases its more than $1 million deficit.
But with the lawsuit still pending, that deficit could loom even larger for ASU.
Permanent mark
Plummer said the only thing that ground crews had a hard time with when changing the field from ASU to Cardinals colors was the midfield logo.
"You could see Sparky at midfield and they'd tried to put a Cardinal bird over it; that's the only thing I noticed," he said.
ASU's fight to keep the Cardinal bird from taking over the maroon and gold colors will soon be over, but the mark the professional team left on the University may always linger.
Reach the reporter at cameron.eickmeyer@asu.edu.
