Prison Company Retracts FAU Stadium Offer
BOCA RATON (CBSMiami) – Florida Atlantic University saw $6 million vanish Monday when the GEO Group decided to pull its offer to buy the naming rights to the stadium.
The GEO Group is a private prison operator and both the school and the business drew scorn from students and other protestors who questioned GEO's commitment to human rights after problems were discovered in some GEO prisons.
The GEO Group told FAU that pulling the deal was in the best long-term interest of the University.
"What was originally intended as a gesture of GEO's goodwill to financially assist the University's athletic scholarship program has surprisingly evolved into an ongoing distraction to both of our organizations," said GEO Group Chairman and CEO George Zoley said in a statement.
GEO had been scheduled to make $500,000 payments to the athletic department for 12 years in exchange for the naming rights to the stadium.
The school will once again open the process again for another business or group to buy the naming rights to what is currently FAU Stadium.
