The University of the District Columbia said it received a $200,000 donation Saturday from businessman Ted Leonsis’s charitable foundation and professional sports ownership group as the school kicked off a sports-related fundraising drive.

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       “In a surprise announcement” during naming ceremonies for UDC’s athletic facility, the school said, it accepted the financial gift from the Leonsis Foundation and from Leonsis’s Monumental Sports & Entertainment, which owns the Washington Capitals, Wizards and Mystics, among other properties.

       At the ceremony, UDC named its athletic facility the Dr. Edwin Bancroft Henderson Sports Complex, after a 1904 graduate of UDC’s predecessor institution who was an educator, athlete, referee, basketball organizer, recreation worker, physical fitness advocate and civil rights activist. Henderson is a member of the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame.

       The $200,000 “lead gift” from Leonsis’s groups comes at the start of UDC’s Memorial Fund Campaign, which is seeking to raise $2 million for upgrades to the sports complex, student scholarships and youth sports camps, the school said.