SDSU Finance Professors Use SDSU Mission Valley Development in Class Project

Snapdragon Stadium (artist rendering)

Two finance professors at the Fowler College of Business at San Diego State University used the publicly available logistical and financial information generated from the SDSU Mission Valley redevelopment site to create a case study, “The San Diego State University Mission Valley Project: An Expanding Mission of a University,” for use in a graded class project. 

Professors Nikhil Varaiya and Anurag Mehrotra gathered information about SDSU Mission Valley, formatted it as a case study, and presented it to students in Varaiya’s Financial Analysis and Management course (Finance 423) on May 2, 2022. The students were instructed to discuss the case and submit written evaluations on the site’s economic feasibility for the university’s athletics program, as well as the site costs and revenue sources.  An earlier version of the case study was also used by David Ely in his Sports Economics course in the Sports MBA Program in fall 2021. 

Anurag Mehrotra (left) and Nikhil Varaiya (right)

When completed, SDSU Mission Valley will feature the 35,000-capacity Snapdragon Stadium, 80 acres of parks and open space, residential and retail space, and 1.6 million square feet of research/innovation space. 

“SDSU Mission Valley has generated the attention of our students, the SDSU community and San Diego residents for the outstanding potential it offers the university and members of the public,” said Varaiya. “Our case study provided students an opportunity to review and analyze publicly available fiscal data for the development in a real-world scenario that already holds great interest to them. Their analysis of the information will be part of their final grade.” 

Varaiya and Mehrotra are in the process of submitting the case study for publication in a peer-reviewed academic journal before the end of the year.