August 29, 2026 - In September 2025, for the first time in its 55-year-old history, West Virginia University announced it had sold naming rights for the former WVU Coliseum to energy company, Hope Gas. Under a 10-year agreement, it will be known as “Hope Coliseum.” According to the university, the deal covers sponsorships and future donations to athletics. 

With that, Hope Gas executed a tried and true soft power move. Coal and gas display a masterclass in marketing masked as community care. 

Here’s the playbook: imbed with our flagship university and football, our two holy grails. Yes, it helps our community, but also, this should be the bare minimum. It’s sneaky. There’s an ulterior motive. In this way, gas makes passive income while amassing social currency. Meanwhile, football players and students do the heavy lifting. What a sweet deal. The name Hope Gas is now repeated at every football game. They bought power by association. Doors open when you have that much money. 

But the spin started earlier with the name “Hope.” It’s doublespeak. There is nothing hopeful about thousands of orphaned oil wells oozing methane across West Virginia to the smell of sulfur and rotting eggs. Constant rate hikes are not hopeful. 

West Virginia is no stranger to rhetoric. Friends of Coal wrote the game decades earlier. The PR campaign, masterfully scripted by Charles Ryan Associates, was the most efficacious propaganda drive in our state’s history. 

Friends of Coal is free to join. It cemented likability in a time of decreased coal revenue, black lung spikes and environment spoilage. The once ubiquitous Friends of Coal bumper sticker built political favoritism. It created social capital. But it wasn’t alone. It stands alongside euphemistic names like American Water, Patriot Coal, Mountaineer Gas, Freedom Energy, Liberty Energy and slogans like “Coal Keeps the Lights On.” 

And it’s very strategic that extractive industries financially support sports. Here’s the truth: Football doesn’t make people think about pollution; it makes people cheer. If we can say the name of a company and WVU in the same sentence, our brains scramble. We start associating coal with knowledge. But hear me out: A sweet naming rights deal is not a substitute for accountability. 

The Friends of Coal campaign oval sticker with a black swoop — like a sideways smile — should be studied as the most effective social marketing coup in West Virginia history. 

The “I Love Mountains” sticker — with a heart representing the word love — created by long-time activist and former West Virginia Highland Conservancy member Julian Martin, tried to counter it. He spread awareness about mountaintop removal mining. It was effective. 

But coal had money. They had sponsorships. The “Friends of Coal Bowl” was a PR branding strategy from 2006-2012 where WVU thrashed poor Marshall in football each year. 

The cost of this campaign was pocket change compared to billions coal companies syphoned off. Not to mention billions in subsidies and mine damage. A logo doesn’t restore a stream. It does not heal lungs choking on coal dust. It does not build back a mountain. 

And gas? It became the new coal. The Ohio River Valley Institute, reported an estimated 50,000 abandoned oil and gas wells in the Mountain State needing to be plugged. Many more are unrecorded. It’s corporate negligence. And that number continues rising. As it does, the number of inspectors drops. It’s shameful. 

Here’s the thing: It costs as much as $100,000 dollars to plug a well. What company would ever want to when they can get away with the public holding the bag? It’s like the old saying: socialized loss and privatized profit. Meanwhile, gas bills spike.

You see, we need responsibility. We need accountability. Who pays for cleanup? Who assumes the risk? A corporate sponsorship doesn’t erase that question. 

Hope Gas increases profit. Rates spike. In 2024, Hope Gas requested an astonishing 40% rate hike. In 2025, they reduced their initial ask to 21%. (Notice how they increase it as high as they can get away with?) It’s unconscionable. 

Hope Gas has asked for another rate increase. Rest assured, there will be more. Regulators have scheduled a hearing on the request for September 23rd in Charleston.

Is this despair or hope? The public can decide. Meanwhile, a coliseum screams Hope; and the crowd cheers.