Louisville: Papa John didn't respond to text message about stadium name change

Louisville said it told Papa John’s founder John Schnatter that his name was coming off the team’s football stadium, contrary to what Schnatter has said publicly about what happened.

The school announced Friday that Papa John’s Cardinal Stadium would simply become Cardinal Stadium. Schnatter told Louisville’s WLKY that he was not informed of the decision to rename the stadium until it was publicly announced.

Schnatter resigned from Louisville’s board of trustees after it was revealed he said a racial slur on a May conference call. Not long after he resigned from Louisville’s board he resigned as the chairman of the board of the pizza company. He had previously resigned as the company’s CEO in December.

Schnatter didn’t think decision to remove name from stadium was final

Schnatter told WLKY that he thought the school was “taking a look” at removing his name from the stadium but wasn’t aware of a final decision.

“The administration said I apologized — I think I need to apologize to the players, the students, the faculty,” Schnatter said. “But I never apologized for taking the name down and I never knew about it.”

Louisville’s deal for the naming rights to Cardinal Stadium was through Schnatter and not the company itself.

Louisville: We texted Schnatter

A school spokesperson told the Louisville Courier-Journal that school president Neeli Bendapudi had reached out to Schnatter via text before she made the announcement public on Friday morning and Schnatter didn’t respond. He had said he wanted time to mull a decision about the name of the stadium over after his name was removed from the university’s business college.

“He asked for time to think about the stadium,” Drees said. “They talked again early Friday before the final decision. Later Friday morning, she called and texted him to share the final decision about the stadium, but he did not respond.”

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Nick Bromberg is a writer for Yahoo Sports.

Follow @NickBromberg on Twitter

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