After years of being outdated, Student Government’s (SG) discount program, Bulls Country, was revamped to offer students newer and popular discounts on stores around Tampa.

The program relaunched May 2018 under former Student Body President Moneer Kheireddine and Vice President Shaquille Kent’s platform, however, it was not maintained after the change in leadership.

The newest Bulls Country list includes 25 businesses ranging from restaurants and local stores to fitness centers granting USF students special discounts on their products or services.

Seven were added this year including Peabody’s Billiards & Games, SoulCycle, Orange Theory and Jersey Mike’s Subs. Discounts range from 5-15 percent off or include drink and food specials.

CBD, Which Wich and Perkins were among businesses who were removed from the discount program.

Regardless of home campus, all USF students can have access to the discount program by presenting their USF ID when dining or purchasing at each participating location.

Assistant Director of External and Business Affairs Alexa Fatovic said that more businesses will be added to the list throughout the semester. Currently, SG is waiting on seven more to add to Bulls Country including Green Lemon, Fresh Kitchen, Starbucks, Waffle House and Ciccio Cali.

“I took into consideration what’s popular around the region and across the student body,” Fatovic said. “A few [businesses] have been around for a very long time, but then we also tried adding a couple of new ones, for example Soul Cycle, Orange Theory and a couple of local food places. Overall, we’re trying to make Tampa more USF oriented.”

Fatovic said SG is also looking into adding discounts offered by some stores at Tampa Premium Outlets.

With the revamp of Bulls Country, Student Body Vice President Travis McCloskey said SG is looking to add more local businesses around Tampa with the hopes to increase USF’s recognition around the area.

“We’re trying to just start chipping away at everyone around here saying ‘Hey, maybe you should show more pride for the entity that makes this area thrive economically.’ We are just trying to make this area have more pride in USF,” McCloskey said.

“Whenever you speak to someone about some schools in Florida, they talk about the University of Florida and Florida State University but you never hear about USF. We are a great institution, but not a lot of people know that or even care about it. So it’s about just starting locally and expanding on our success and what we’ve accomplished.”

In addition to updating Bulls Country, Fatovic said that a sticker is being developed to place at each participating business in order to easily recognize stores offering student discounts.

“We’re in the midst of working on a discount sticker,” Fatovic said. “So if [the businesses] are interested, we’re going to give stickers stating that a ‘USF discount is offered here’ so they can place it at the front of their stores.”

Whether updating Bulls Country will be a priority for the next semester is still undecided as a new administration will be coming in with their own platform. However, McCloskey said that it also comes down to student demand for that resource.

“It’s up to the next administration to determine if this is something that they want to continue doing,” McCloskey said. “And that’s kind of the limitation and why it fell off in the first place. It’s up to the next administration to continue updating it and having an invested interest, as well as students voicing that they want to see that resource in the future semesters.”