As you’ve likely read in recent weeks, IU has obtained a $50 million line of credit related to Memorial Stadium and is seeking another $150 million from the state.
In an interview on Sidelines Stories with Tricia Whitaker and Sydney Parrish, IU AD Scott Dolson spoke about the plans for the $50 million, and the future vision for enhancements to Memorial Stadium as additional funds become available.
On the initial $50 million…
“The $50 million is really a line of credit to help us on the guts of the building to make certain that we can handle sellouts, that we can host home games in December,” Dolson said. “If we host a CFP game, the pipes won’t freeze and break. So, there’s a lot of things because the stadium was built in 1961 that we need to do that aren’t things that are necessarily the easiest things to fund raise for in the world. You’re not fundraising really for bathrooms, right? Or for the Memorial Stadium pipes. Yeah, the pipes. So, that 50 million maybe won’t be as visible.”
On further plans down the road…
“So, that’s one side of the track. On the other side, what we’re working on is really a master plan for the stadium that’s more of a fan experience, revenue generating, and we’re really close on that. We’re in a silent fundraising. That’s the fundraising part. And we’re really looking at a lot of exciting things to make certain that it touches every fan. And we’ve done two different surveys. One before the rise in Indiana football, one after because we wanted to make certain we took account the impact.
“And so whether it’s overall fan experience when you come into the game, the concourses, concession stands, restrooms, scoreboards, sound system, Wi-Fi. It impacts too, how can we really elevate premium seating because that drives revenue and that ultimately can help us sustain the resources that we need to keep the program going.
“So we’re in the search for a major gift. The way these things work in the major gift fundraising for that silent — what that means is we need a couple lead gifts like what happened at Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall. We’re in this process of doing the same thing for Assembly Hall at the time. You know, Cindy (Simon Skjodt) made the lead gift that really was like a rocket ship that got that thing going. And that’s what we’re doing now. We’ve got a overall game plan. We just are looking for those leadership gifts to get to take off.
On what will be visible in 2026…
And what I anticipate is there’ll be some things for this season that people will notice. Railings are starting to go in. They won’t be all done until probably about halfway through the season. Railings are a big safety thing as part of that 50 million. And the following season, you’ll see other things that’ll be part of the fundraising part.
We actually built a temporary store on the east side that is for our apparel sales. Normally we’ve had the, no offense I love county fairs, but the county fair trailer right you’ve had those well now we actually have a storefront with glass and you walk in the store that they built, it’s amazing this prefab building.
“We’ve put in some new premium seating areas. We’ve put suites and premium areas in every nook and cranny you can. So, we’ve added on the field, you’ll see there’s two new field suites.
“We just got approved by the board of trustees some improvements just to the back operations so we feel like we can handle the sellouts a little better. So, there’ll be some noticeable things. There’ll be some things that we know about that will help us operate that people just won’t realize.”
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