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The fastest way to renovate your college football stadium? Buy better players.

Andy Staples head shotby:Andy Staples•11/18/24•

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The headline screams “A Bold New Vision For College Football Unveiled at Northwestern” before explaining how $850 million will turn Ryan Field from a dump into a state-of-the-art venue featuring premium clubs and “better-than-TV” sight-lines.

It’s a beautiful stadium in a beautiful location — near the shores of Lake Michigan — in a cool suburb of one of America’s great cities. It’s also probably a waste of money.

Why spend nearly a billion dollars to make visiting fans comfortable as they watch their favorite team beat Northwestern by three touchdowns when you can spend a fraction of that and make Northwestern competitive on the field? (And then hit up the happy donors for your big capital project so you raise a larger down payment and take on less long-term debt.) The college football world has changed, but not everyone understands the universal truth of the new era: The cheapest way to improve your stadium is to buy better players to put in it.

Imagine Northwestern has 20 percent of that figure in donor commitments right now as a down payment. That’s $170 million. Use part of that to start an endowment to fund the $22 million a year in revenue sharing that will be allowed by the House v. NCAA settlement, and direct the rest toward NIL. Yes, I realize the schools think they’ll be policing non-revenue share payments to players starting next year, but the recent history of Big-Time College Sports v. The Sherman Antitrust Act says they won’t. Make a budget of $25 million for football players, which would put Northwestern with Ohio State and (soon to be) Michigan at the top of the Big Ten in spending.

Even with higher academic standards than most of its rivals, Northwestern could significantly upgrade its roster. Wildcats coach David Braun has done an incredible job so far, considering the circumstances and roster he inherited. Give him Ryan Day roster-building money and let Braun cook. Last decade, we saw Stanford become the program of choice for smart blue-chip players. The combination of competitive pay and a world-class degree would be an incredible draw. If it worked, Northwestern would win more and donors probably would happily fund a huge stadium renovation. If it didn’t, then the school probably would deal with the same level of debt service it would have anyway.

This is not to pick on Northwestern. The Ryan Field project has been in the works for years, and the seeds of it were planted before paying players and unlimited transfers changed the math. It is more of a warning to other schools considering such a move. 

At Florida, athletic director Scott Stricklin wants to commit half a billion dollars to renovating Ben Hill Griffin Stadium. For a fraction of that, the Gators could put a better supporting cast around quarterback D.J. Lagway and stop being a .500 program. Winning makes fans happier than pavilions. Winning also makes donors more likely to give later.

The Gators will get a taste of how this can work Saturday when Ole Miss visits. Ole Miss athletic director Keith Carter paused plans to renovate Vaught-Hemingway Stadium and told donors it would be better now to fund the Rebels’ player acquisition efforts. The result is a roster that pummeled Georgia 28-10 the last time it took the field. If Ole Miss beats Florida and Mississippi State, the Rebels likely will make the College Football Playoff and will scare the hell out of any potential opponent in the bracket.

The fans at Vaught-Hemingway for that Georgia game didn’t seem disappointed that they didn’t have more exclusive lounges. Everyone — from the bunker suites to the nosebleeds — seemed pretty thrilled to stand in the rain and watch their team beat up on a superpower. Another year or so of that could produce some pretty enthusiastic stadium renovation donors.

What’s odd is this isn’t exactly cutting-edge thinking. Because it isn’t the NFL where owners can con local governments into subsidizing stadium builds, most major capital projects in college football have happened on the heels of on-field success. What’s different now is that there is a quicker way to that on-field success, and relatively speaking, it’s a lot cheaper than a major capital project.

So why dump money into a stadium if you’re just going to resign yourself to putting an average or below-average product on the field? You probably won’t recoup the investment. Instead, spend a fraction of that money and just try to be better at football for a while.

Your fans will appreciate it. The happiest crowds aren’t the ones with the fanciest seats. They’re the ones that get to celebrate a win by the home team.