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Size matters: The building boom continues for bigger, better Big 12 athletic facilitiesFrom Baylor to Texas to West Virginia, upgrading athletic facilities has been all the rage. And Texas A&M, other state schools are building, too.
Posted August 18th, 2018
Jimbo Fisher inherited a palace of a football stadium when he accepted the job at Texas A&M.
The Aggies are three years removed from finishing a $500 million renovation of Kyle Field, giving them the largest stadium in the Southeastern Conference and one of the biggest in the country.
But in the big business of college football, building booms never end. So a beautiful palace never can be enough. It's like a constant loop of reno shows on HGTV. Other sports besides football need spiffier spaces, too. Recruits, the lifeblood of a program, want gaudy. Donors demand what the rival is showing off.
"When you build facilities, the worst thing you can do is stop," Fisher said last week. His school's most recent projects include new stadiums for softball and track at a cost of $69 million.
Schools can pay for the construction through a mixture of money raised from bonds and/or private donations. And schools in Power 5 leagues are getting lucrative annual payments from their conferences. Each Big 12 school received $36.5 million in conference revenue for the recently completed athletic year. That payment doesn't include what each school collects in its third-tier rights.
Sports then generate big money. For example, Texas generated nearly $215 million in athletic revenue for last year. That led the country.
Texas hit pause on major football construction projects almost a decade ago. But earlier this month, the UT board of regents approved a $175 million refurbishment project for Royal-Memorial Stadium. Once finished, the near century-old venue will feature another stadium club that will stretch the length of the south end zone. It'll be similar to the posh field-level club the Dallas Cowboys have at AT&T Stadium.
Since UT last did major football construction, A&M has re-imagined Kyle Field, Baylor built $266 million McLane Stadium on the banks of the Brazos River, TCU gutted, then re-did art deco Amon Carter at a cost of $164 million and Houston completed TDECU Stadium for $128 million.
And more is planned around the state. And in the Big 12. And across the country.
"Bigger, better, shinier. I think that's the way it's going," Texas Tech coach Kliff Kingsbury said in describing the construction trends. "Anything that you can attract recruits with, we're going to be wanting it and I think you're going to see that continued to move in that direction. Any way you can differentiate yourself from a facilities standpoint would be a positive for your program."
Among Big 12 schools:
- Baylor is contemplating either building a new basketball arena or renovating the Ferrell Center at a cost of up to $80 million. New team areas for volleyball and the acrobatic and tumbling squads also are being considered.
- Football coach Matt Rhule would love a new complex devoted to just football.
"I think if I could do one thing for us in terms of our facilities, it would be a football-only building," Rhule said. "And that's two-fold, having our own weight room, having our own training room would be ideal. My wish list everybody would have their own facility, which is what I had at Temple, what we had at Penn State.
"Just like the weight room, the training room, meeting rooms, having it all self-contained. That would be mine if I could pick."
- Iowa State's regents recently approved projects that will cost up to $80 million that will include expansion of the football stadium's north end zone entrance and team complex along with a new academic and sports nutrition center.
- Kansas is in the midst of a $300 million building revival that will include new stadiums for softball, soccer, tennis and track. The football stadium will feature premium seating in both end zones and a $3 million refurbishment of the team's complex, plus a new indoor practice area.
- Kansas State is building a new soccer stadium and refurbishing its baseball complex. Total cost: $15 million.
- Oklahoma is finishing the last touches of its $160 million south end zone project at its football stadium. A new video board in the north end zone will be ready for the season home opener. The athletic department also is dedicating its $7 million Griffin Family Performance Center for basketball next weekend.
The school's regents also decided to build a new $22 million softball stadium.
Oklahoma State is in the midst of building a new $60 million baseball stadium and will open a soccer arena this fall.
