Riccardo Silva has a nice, fat ego. After donating $3.76 million to Florida International University (where his NASL team Miami FC also plays), for football stadium renovations and naming rights, the Miami FC owner decided to name the stadium after himself.
To be fair, that’s a huge sum of money. The Miami Herald said it’s the largest gift ever to the FIU athletic department and the 12th-largest to any part of the school ever. But if you’re buying naming rights, I’m not sure you can really call it a “gift” anyway.
From the Miami Herald:
Silva’s donation paid for naming rights to the 20,000-seat stadium, and also for improvements such as a new turf field, and an 1,800-square-foot, high-definition videoboard.
What’s weird though is very few people in America know Riccardo Silva from name recognition. He was a huge figure in Italian soccer for a long time, but isn’t necessarily known in North America. Considering Miami FC had an average attendance barely over 3,000 last season in the North American Soccer League, maybe naming the place Miami FC Stadium would have been a better idea to, you know, let people know that the team even exists.
But at least the team should benefit from the other stadium upgrades.
“Now, they will win all home games, they will have no excuses,” Silva said, laughing. “No, seriously, I think last year was our first year in all senses, and I think it was a positive season. Maybe we didn’t have the best turf, but we worked together in the offseason with the university to make it better. Now, we have a perfect field, the right combination for football and soccer. Both teams will benefit.”
But congrats to Silva and his ego nonetheless.
