For years Indiana has had conversations with Merchants Bank about a deal that would put their branding on the field at Memorial Stadium.
But more often than not, the IU football program hasn’t been the right business partner.
That hit home when IU AD Scott Dolson ran into Merchants Bank Chairman and CEO Michael Petrie at an IU basketball game in New York a couple years ago.
The directive from Petrie was clear.
“We’ve talked about that (renaming the field), but I want to be part of a winning program,” Dolson said was Petrie’s message at the time.
Since Indiana’s College Football Playoff 2024 season led by Curt Cignetti, there have been many ways Dolson has seen successful football lead to tangible benefits. From the enthusiasm he sees around Bloomington, to a sold-out student section in 2025, to an overall growth in the season ticket sales of 50%, IU football is undeniably on the upswing.
And nothing illustrates it more than the 20-year, $50 million deal struck by Merchants Bank and IU Athletics that includes the renaming of IU football’s home playing surface to Merchants Bank Field at Memorial Stadium.
Now that the field has a new name and IU has a significant new revenue stream, an obvious question is whether there be stadium upgrades in the near future? While the Hoosiers looked the part of a top college football program in 2024, their home facilities did not.
Over the last year, Cignetti has said in jest he’d like to add a second deck of stands on the east side of Memorial Stadium, and replace the outdated press box on the west side.
“Down the road, that stadium is going to look a lot different, and before I retire that press box has to come down,” Cignetti said last month at Big Ten media day.
But things aren’t that simple in this era of revenue sharing, NIL and soaring salaries for coaching staffs. Dolson says they haven’t decided specifically how the funds from the Merchants deal will be utilized, but ensuring Indiana has high-end resources for the players and staff will be the top priorities.
“I talked with Coach Cignetti this week and he wholeheartedly agrees, our priorities are our players No. 1, making certain we can compete in the environment of college athletics today, staffing is 1A, maintaining staff, coaches across the board is really important to us, and then third would be facilities, right behind those two,” Dolson said.
Dolson says when it comes to the bigger renovations at Memorial Stadium Cignetti wants, IU is still in the master planning phase. It’s something Indiana has been working on for a while. A modernization survey went out to the fan base two years ago. But in the face of an ever-changing college sports landscape that this year and beyond includes a new $20 million-plus revenue sharing expense, the stadium master plan has had to take a backseat at times. And following the success of 2024, there is also now a temptation to dream big.
For now, Dolson and his staff are still trying to comprehend just what exactly is the new normal, and what that means for Memorial Stadium.
“We’re still trying to dial-in, what should the future of the stadium overall look like, and should that be something that we piecemeal together year-after-year, or something we take on with one big project,” Dolson said.
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