Getty ImagesTexas and Texas A&M may no longer be in the same conference, but the race for the biggest stadium in the state is clearly still on.
Chancellor John Sharp said Tuesday that the Texas A&M University System plans to spend up to $450 million on renovations to Kyle Field that could push capacity up to 103,500, according The Eagle. Kyle Field currently seats about 82,500.
For what it’s worth, Texas’ Memorial Stadium is currently just over 100,000 thanks to 2009 expansion. Now, it could be that the Aggies are simply looking to upgrade facilities to be more competitive with SEC stadiums, but derive what you will from that fact.
Of course, UT has been in talks for some time about enclosing the south end zone of the stadium, pushing capacity to around 120,000.
Ooh, that’ll put them up there with Alabama and Tennessee (within the conference). I like their long range planning.
That’s getting up there among the largest. Now A&M needs to continue improving its football program over this same period.
LSU will have their expansion completed about 2014-15 and it will total about 99,000 with a great expansion to the luxury boxes/suites, and a new scoreboard–all completed at no cost to the school or to the state taxpayer, and we congratulate LSU for this.
That’s just great. You know they’ll just keep raising ticket prices until no one can afford to go to the games. DeLoss won’t allow the aggys to have a bigger stadium. He’ll increase DKR before the Ags break ground.
Reblogged this on OnePointSafety and commented:
It will be interesting to see how the Aggies handle this expansion.
Texas football sux. It don’t matter how big the stadium is. Lol
Sounds like A&M will need to add more “Yell” leaders.
Sounds like they want to be a contender instead of a pretender
Guess that move to the SEC is working out quite well for the Aggies. Welcome to the SEC again, Aggies and congrats from getting away from UT.
As an LSU fan I am definitely concerned about the recruiting impact on LSU but enjoy having A&M in the league.
Wish we could have gotten FSU instead of Missouri since they don’t seem to be a natural fit.
foreverlsu:
A stupid “gentlemen’s agreement” exists at the SEC among college presidents, the idiots that at least some are: The SEC will not accept another college into the SEC if a present SEC school is located in that state.” It is such bunk, it is ridiculous.
The SEC has numerous (in fact MOST) members with two in a state: Ole Miss and Miss. State; Vanderbilt and TN (and previously Suwanee) ; Auburn and Alabama; Georgia and (previous member Georgia Tech); LSU (and previous member Tulane). The hypocrisy and stupidity is obvious for all to see, but since they do this “behind closed doors” who knows for sure that they did or did not.
Other than that stupid agreement, I would not give up on Florida State completely, but I’m not optimistic (about maybe 20%). They really like the ACC basketball and some other sports, but the SEC football is definitely the best, along with SEC women’s gymnastics, track (men’s and women’s), women’s basketball, etc.
the ACC has a $50 million dollar payout now, so that will keep FSU, Clemson, Miami, Maryland and VaTech in the fold for now…..FSU really wants out, and they shouldhave jumped last year.
as for as texas a and m thinking about going to 100k plus for kyle field, I think that would be great, provided they can pay for it…..a and m’s athlethic dept had to borrow 20million from the general student fund the last two years to pay their bills, even though they were getting money from the big 12 at the same time.
UT can easily have the largest stadium in the country if they close up the south endzone..they could put 25k seats right there, and the Horns have the money right now to pull the trigger
LOL! When I was dating an Aggie in the 1960s, capacity at Kyle Field was 41,500 and they were lucky if they got that! We used to joke that when the Aggies grew up they would have a stadium the size of Darryl K. Royal Stadium at the University of Texas. Now, it looks they will be bigger than that! My oh my!
v2the4:
Thank you for your post and information.
$50M is a huge payout. Is that the largest in the nation for college conferences? I had not heard of one quite that large before. That will keep colleges faithful even if they may wish to wander.
TAMU athletics borrowed $20M the last 2 years? Something is truly wrong there. Maybe they can market better and cut costs somewhere. LSU Football recently entered into a historic document with the University to contractually guarantee to pay them yearly millions and to guarantee a percentage of funds donated to LSU beyond any expenses. If they make a profit of $5M or more the general fund receives 50%.
This year that will mean additional millions given back to the general fund of LSU. Coach Miles, the coach, and Joe Alleva, the AD both said it was something they thought proper since the school made it possible for them to be there and succeed and that funding from the state of Louisiana had been cut drastically after the downturn in the economy.
The LSU Athletic Department pays the general fund of LSU many millions each year and a percentage of all revenues and a percentage of all profits, as detailed in a first of its kind guaranteed contract which the general fund can now count on each of the next five years of the contract.
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The aggies are always trying to play with the big boys, but a bigger stadium won’t help. The aggies love to copy the University of Texas, but like with more money (from the sec), more seats won’t translate into being a winning program. Just more fans to watch you do what y’all do best, losing! Hookem Horns!!