Kicking off: CU, CSU betting big on football stadium upgrades to attract fans, dollars
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Two Colorado universities are in the midst of major improvements to their football stadiums to help drive new revenue streams and improve both their academic and athletic programs.
The University of Colorado Boulder is implementing a $156 million renovation of Folsom Field, the stadium where the Buffaloes play every season, and Colorado State University is spending $239 million to build a new 644,132-square-foot football stadium and academic complex for the Rams that is adjacent to campus, unlike Hughes Stadium which sits three miles away.
The University of Northern Colorado spent $984,000 last summer installing one large video display at its football stadium, Nottingham Field, and two large video displays at its basketball arena, Bank of Colorado Arena, “to improve the game-day experience,” said Nate Haas, UNC spokesman.
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So why is it important to upgrade their current stadium facilities?
“We hadn’t built any facilities for our student athletes since 1991,” said Rick George, director of athletics at CU. “This was something we needed to improve the experience of our student athletes.”
Joe Parker, athletic director at Colorado State, said that CSU’s stadium has served its purpose for more than 50 years and it was time to integrate a new stadium into its Fort Collins campus.
It is important to UNC to update its athletic facilities when it can because events held at the two venues positively impact the “teams and fans traveling to Greeley and (support) the local economy through lodging, meals at restaurants and transportation,” Haas said.
George said upgrades to Folsom Field aren’t just for the football team but for all student athletes. The project is growing the stadium’s academic space from 5,000 to 17,000 square feet and the stadium’s strength and conditioning space from 9,000 to 22,000 square feet.
He is very excited that the addition will make room for the university to expand its sports medicine facilities by 50 percent. The university’s high-performance sports center will take up 27,000 square feet and will be open to the public from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. every day but Sunday.
“In this space will be a collaboration between Boulder Community Health and the CU School of Medicine which allows us to benefit the community in a significant way,” George said, “but it is also good for the students on campus because there are doctors on site, on campus.”
Anyone with orthopedic injuries can receive treatment and rehabilitation there, he said.
“It will bring a lot of people onto our campus and athletic facilities, which we think is great,” George said. “It is important we engage in a significant way in our community (that will) attract people to our athletic facilities on a daily basis.”
CU is trying to raise all of the funds for the renovation through corporate sponsorships and donations. It has raised nearly $77 million so far through its endowment and capital donations.
“I’m pleased at where we are with our fundraising,” George said. So far, more than 1,100 donors have stepped up to donate to this campaign.
The project is expected to be completed by the first home football game on Sept. 12 and the new 500-stall parking facility is expected to be completed by February.
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CSU’s new state-of-the-art stadium will do something Hughes Stadium never accomplished: It will bring the Rams’ game day experience back to campus.
Hughes has needed improvements for awhile. Many deferred-maintenance issues never were addressed, Parker said. The university realized it had to either make significant investment to the current stadium or make an ultimately larger investment to bring the football experience back to campus. It chose the latter.
The football program will benefit from the new stadium and complex, but it is the “engagement aspect it provides” that is the biggest benefit, Parker said. Most alumni traveling to Fort Collins for a football game never make it past the stadium, and most never make it back to campus after they graduate because of where Hughes is located.
“By bringing it back to campus in 2017, immediately the university gets to share all the great things that are occurring in its academic core,” Parker said. “It helps build that relationship between the university’s alumni and prospective students who attend games. They get their first feel for the university through that experience.”
Not everyone has been thrilled by the university’s decision to build a new stadium, Parker said, but most people who are invested in the long-term success of the university, “recognize that growth is a thing that positively impacts most of the community. I think it is going to be a huge success in so many ways.”
Not only will the stadium benefit the university and surrounding businesses economically but it will allow CSU football fans to enjoy a much more fulfilling game day experience, he said.
CSU issued bonds in March that were very well received, Parker said.
Stadiums at a glance
CU Folsom Field
• Capacity: 50,183
• Renovation: 200,000-square-foot expansion to Folsom Field, 120,000-square-foot indoor practice facility and 550-stall below-grade parking garage.
• Cost of improvements: $156 million
• Amenities: 10,000 square feet of new academic space, additional locker rooms and a weight room for Olympic sports at Dal Ward Athletic Center, a 21,900-square-foot high-performance sports center, three additional premium seating options in the northeast corner of Folsom Field.
• Project completed: February 2016
CSU new stadium
• Capacity: 41,000
• New stadium specs: 635,000-square-foot facility, 36,000 seats.
• Cost: $220 million
• Amenities: Premium seating, 9,100-square-foot stadium weight room, 5,800-square-foot Hall of Champions, 3,700-square-foot player lounge, retail shops and additional ticket booths.
• Project completed: 2017 football season
The old stadium site will be knocked down and the land will be repurposed for development. As part of its revenue-generating ideas, CSU plans to sell the naming rights for the new stadium either through a private donation or a sponsor relationship with a business entity, Parker said.
UNC believes that making improvements to its athletic facilities over time provides academic benefits as well as Division I opportunities for student athletes who go on to graduate and contribute to the economy. It also gains the university exposure and attention in Division 1, with competitive opportunities in the Big Sky Conference, Haas said.
The video displays were funded through external sources, including donors and sponsors.
“Our stadium, Nottingham Field, and arena, Bank of Colorado Arena, also serve as venues to hold events such as concerts for students, fairs like Teacher Employment Days for prospective K-12 teachers and commencement (ours and area high schools), in addition to the sports camps we host and non-UNC-affiliated athletic events, such as high school tournaments,” Haas said.
CU’s first priority in renovating Folsom Field was to improve the sports facility for all of the university’s student athletes and the second was to connect more with the Boulder and campus communities, George said.
“I’m really passionate about this facility and what it can do for CU Athletics, the community and university,” George said.
The renovation includes three new meeting spaces that can be used for conferences, clinics and weddings on non-game days.
CSU is gaining an $18.5 million, 82,975-square-foot academic and alumni center as part of the $239 million in bonds that were issued for the stadium project.
It will add more restrooms on the concourse level, additional ticket booths, stadium retail shops, a 9,100-square-foot weight room, a 3,700-square foot player lounge and a 5,800-square-foot Hall of Champions, which will honor CSU’s long football tradition.
Parker said that it isn’t the newness of the CSU stadium that matters most but that the facility serves the community in the right way.
“We are so lucky to be building a new facility. A lot of people are retrofitting their existing stadium and it is hard to get all the elements aligned in the right way,” Parker said. “We’re going to have three times as many restroom facilities as we do in Hughes and four times as much covered concourse space as we do at Hughes.”
With that comes a lot more concession point of sales, which will make it quicker for fans to take a restroom break and get a hot dog or beer before heading back to their seats, he said.
“It ends up enhancing the quality of the experience,” he said. “When you have a new stadium, it is easier to design that and build it so it all fits together well.”
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Two Colorado universities are in the midst of major improvements to their football stadiums to help drive new revenue streams and improve both their academic and athletic programs.
The University of Colorado Boulder is implementing a $156 million renovation of Folsom Field, the stadium where the Buffaloes play every season, and Colorado…
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