The Coliseum Commission is expected to approve a lease agreement with USC today that could pave the way for millions of dollars in improvements to the aging Coliseum and ensure that USC remains a tenant for an additional half-century.
The proposed deal, the result of weeks of intense negotiations between Coliseum and USC officials, would require the Coliseum to finance improvements that are expected to cost in the neighborhood of $50 million over the next decade.
USC would continue to pay rent of approximately $1.6million per season, pick up a slightly larger share of game-day costs and lend its name to the Coliseum’s pursuit of naming rights that would help finance the improvements.
The agreement comes more than two months after USC, frustrated with the progress of talks that had gone on for more than a year, threatened to move its games to the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, home of the UCLA Bruins. After several weeks of rhetoric, mostly coming from USC, the two sides negotiated an agreement ready for discussion at today’s regularly scheduled monthly meeting.
