St. Thomas has a mobile press box at the Twins’ stadium, but students are not paying for it, according to Doug Hennes, vice president for university and government relations.

Hennes said the funding for the press box is part of “marketing communications,” which involves different forms of St. Thomas advertising.

Hennes said marketing communications costs “far less than 1 percent [of tuition],” and the press box cost was absorbed “within our regular budget for this year and for the next fiscal year.”

Junior Justine Panka said the press box is a “good idea because it’s a fun way to advertise the university [and] everyone loves baseball.”

Hennes said St. Thomas did not seek out the opportunity to advertise with the press box but was offered the opportunity because of its involvement with ESPN sponsorships.

“We have been advertising for more than a year on Joe Soucheray’s Garage Logic Sports Talk radio shows,” Hennes said. ESPN 1500 is the same station that broadcasts all the Twins’ games.

“They [ESPN] approached us during the winter and asked us if we’d be interested in sponsoring the press box,” he added.

Hennes said a lot of thought went into the decision and that visibility and the ability to promote individual programs were the main reasons St. Thomas decided to support the press box.

“We saw a lot of upside in terms of getting our name out there, the university’s name as well as the name of individual programs,” he said.

Hennes said each department will be assigned a home series. Academic and administrative departments such as the law school, Catholic studies and the development office will decide how they want to advertise, such as information cards or newsletters.

Freshmen Tim Dessonville said it’s a wise move because “a lot of people go to Twins games, especially with the new stadium.”

He added, “It shows that [St. Thomas] gets involved with stuff that goes on in the area.”

The press box is portable, and “last year ESPN took that trailer out to 21 different locations,” Hennes said. He said it may be available for St. Thomas events in the summer and football games in the fall.

There also will be two hours of pregame programming in front of the press box, and St. Thomas now has a stronger online presence on the ESPN 1500 website, Hennes said. He said the ESPN website gets “about 900,000 hits a month,” and St. Thomas will be able to track the hits.

Hennes said it’s still too early to tell if the press box will be a beneficial investment.

“We signed up for a year, and then we’ll make a decision in the fall,” he added.

Lizzy Schmitt can be reached at schm9587@stthomas.edu.