Galaxy signs 15-year stadium naming deal with Texas Tech

Galaxy Digital is putting its name on Texas Tech’s football stadium in a 15-year deal valued at more than $70 million, according to a Friday announcement distributed on PR Newswire. For investors watching GLXY, the agreement ties the crypto-linked company’s brand to college sports while it builds out a larger data-center business in Texas.

The venue, now known as Jones AT&T Stadium, will become Galaxy Stadium beginning with the 2026 football season, Galaxy said. Texas Tech is scheduled to play its first game under the new stadium name on Sept. 5 against Abilene Christian.

Galaxy, which trades on Nasdaq under the ticker GLXY, describes itself as a trading, asset-management and data-center company. Under the agreement, the company becomes the official data center and digital assets partner of Texas Tech Athletics. Digital assets generally refers to crypto and blockchain-linked assets.

The partnership also gives Galaxy branding across Texas Tech football and men’s and women’s basketball, according to the announcement. It includes name, image and likeness opportunities, known as NIL, for student-athletes through branded campaigns and original content. NIL deals let college athletes be paid for commercial use of their personal brand.

What Texas Tech gets from the deal

Texas Tech athletics director Kirby Hocutt said in the announcement that the school was pleased to add Galaxy as the stadium’s naming-rights partner. He said the long-term agreement would have a lasting impact on Texas Tech Athletics.

The timing puts the deal in front of a football program coming off a stronger national profile. Texas Tech won the Big 12 and reached the College Football Playoff, according to the announcement.

Naming-rights deals are common in sports because they give companies repeated exposure every time a stadium, broadcast or schedule is mentioned. For a public company, that exposure can also help explain a business shift to a wider audience, especially when the brand is moving beyond its original market.

Galaxy’s Texas push

Galaxy CEO Mike Novogratz pointed to the company’s Helios campus in Dickens County, Texas, near Lubbock, as part of the reason for the partnership. In the announcement, he said Galaxy is building infrastructure there for what he called the “code economy.”

Galaxy is investing billions of dollars into Helios, according to the announcement. The campus has 1.6 gigawatts of approved capacity for high-performance computing, a term for large computing systems used for demanding workloads. Those workloads can include artificial intelligence and other data-heavy applications.

Novogratz also said Galaxy plans to hire locally and be a good neighbor in the region.

The deal places Galaxy in a category where crypto companies have used sports partnerships to build mainstream recognition. Crypto.com previously bought naming rights tied to the Formula 1 Miami Grand Prix, while FTX pursued an NBA arena naming deal before its collapse, according to Decrypt. Those examples show why long-term crypto-linked sponsorships can bring both visibility and reputational risk.

For Texas Tech, the agreement brings a long-term corporate partner and new athlete marketing opportunities. For Galaxy, it puts the company’s name on a major college football venue as it tries to connect its digital-assets roots with a broader infrastructure strategy in Texas.

This story draws on original reporting from Decrypt.