Novogratz's Helios Lands in Lubbock: Galaxy Drops $70M+ to Put Its Name on Texas Tech's House 🤠

Galaxy Digital has signed a 15-year naming rights agreement with Texas Tech University, renaming the school's football stadium Galaxy Stadium beginning with the 2026 season. The deal, announced Friday, is worth more than $70 million and also names Galaxy the official data center and digital assets partner of Texas Tech Athletics. Branding will extend across football and men's and women's basketball, with name, image and likeness opportunities for student-athletes through "branded activation campaigns and original content," the companies said. Galaxy Digital trades on Nasdaq under the ticker GLXY.

The Red Raiders will open the Galaxy Stadium era on Sept. 5 against Abilene Christian, one season after winning the Big 12 and reaching the College Football Playoff. "We're pleased to welcome Galaxy as the new naming rights partner of our football stadium," athletics director Kirby Hocutt said in a statement. "This long-term partnership with Galaxy will have a lasting impact on Texas Tech Athletics."

Galaxy CEO Mike Novogratz tied the deal to the company's West Texas buildout. "At our Helios campus in nearby Dickens County, we're building the infrastructure that powers the code economy," Novogratz said, noting that the site has 1.6 gigawatts of approved capacity for high-performance computing and that Galaxy plans to hire locally and "be a good neighbor."

The naming rights deal deepens Galaxy's footprint in a state that has emerged as a major hub for the crypto industry. Texas is already home to large Bitcoin ($BTC) miners and digital infrastructure operators including Riot Platforms, Cipher Mining, Core Scientific, CleanSpark, IREN and Hut 8. In February, mining hardware maker Canaan acquired a 49% stake in three operating Texas mining facilities from Cipher Mining for nearly $40 million, and earlier this month MARA Holdings announced plans to acquire a 2-gigawatt powered site in the state to develop a digital infrastructure campus supporting both HPC and Bitcoin mining. Gov. Greg Abbott last year signed legislation creating the Texas Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, and in May state officials began transitioning the reserve's holdings from a spot Bitcoin ETF to directly custodied bitcoin.

Galaxy's West Texas expansion comes as the company has pivoted from crypto trading toward AI and HPC data center operations, a shift underscored by a $482 million quarterly loss that pressured its share price. The Helios campus, about 60 miles east of Lubbock, is among the largest data center buildouts in North America, and gigawatt-scale developments in drought-prone West Texas have drawn scrutiny over water and grid strain, conditions that will test Galaxy's planned "closed-loop" water system.