COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio State plans to spend round $125 million on upgrades to the Woody Hayes Athletic Middle, athletic director Ross Bjork mentioned Thursday.
The renovation to the coaching facility, which is residence to the soccer program, would be the first since $21.5 million upgrades in 2005-07. Bjork mentioned Ohio State has raised sufficient cash or has gives in entrance of donors to satisfy a good portion of that quantity. Bjork mentioned Ohio State plans to interrupt floor on its renovations in about 18 months.
Ohio State has been discussing potential adjustments to the Woody Hayes Athletic Middle for years, courting again to former athletic director Gene Smith. The undertaking has been delayed for a wide range of causes, together with the fixed adjustments in school sports activities. The upgrades are nonetheless pending remaining design work, bids and approvals.
“We simply should go, it’s time to go,” Bjork mentioned. “We’ve talked about it, however once more we’ve been on this triage mode of adapting to NIL, adapting budgets, we’ve added scholarships to maintain 36 sports activities, we simply have to go.”
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Ohio State is increasing the locker room and coaching room and constructing a brand new weight room, all contained in the Woody Hayes Athletic Middle, which can keep at its present location at 535 Irving Schottenstein Dr. It won’t influence the observe fields within the again or the indoor facility, Bjork mentioned.
The adjustments may also embrace upgrades to educate places of work and place rooms, in addition to a staff assembly room that may’t maintain the whole staff for a gathering proper now.
“The person place rooms are in the identical place because the coaches’ places of work, so if (offensive line coach) Tyler Bowen must have a non-public assembly and any individual needs to observe movie, any individual has to go away,” Bjork mentioned.
The soccer staff shall be compelled to vacate the ability for over a yr whereas development is happening, displacing it for a season. The tentative plan is to maneuver the soccer staff into short-term areas, in addition to using the Fawcett Middle, which is residence to the athletic administration places of work.
Bjork mentioned Ohio State shall be considerate about the place it strikes the soccer staff as a result of it doesn’t wish to simply put the staff in one other constructing or state of affairs that doesn’t match.
“We’ve got folks in closets now,” Bjork mentioned with amusing. “We’ve obtained to get them out of there.”
A $500 million price range?
Ohio State has one of many largest athletic departments within the nation, sponsoring 36 varsity sports activities groups. The varsity has been adamant that it received’t minimize any, which in flip results in having one of many largest working budgets within the nation.
The Buckeyes set a college report with $336 million in income from the fiscal yr 2025, after the soccer staff received the nationwide championship. In the identical fiscal yr, the athletic division had $320,394,965 in working bills.
Bjork mentioned he expects Ohio State, which has remained self-sufficient, would be the first college to have a $500 million annual working price range for its athletic division.
“It’s going to occur,” Bjork mentioned. “It may occur three years from now, two years from now, 5 years from now, however we could have a $500 million athletic price range sooner or later in time very quickly. We’ve got that functionality.”
When Bjork took over as athletic director in 2024, he got here with a powerful background in fundraising from his time at Texas A&M and Ole Miss. His focus is on maximizing Ohio State’s model, he mentioned.
“There’s quite a lot of information that reveals we’ve got 12 million followers,” Bjork mentioned. “If 1 % of these folks would be part of Buckeye Membership, that’s 120,000. Proper now we’ve got about 25,000 donors and that’s an important quantity, but when you consider how we take the scale and scale of Ohio State and maximize it, there actually is not any ceiling for our program from an engagement enterprise, worth, income and all of these issues. That’s what we’re going to give attention to is taking imaginative and prescient and turning it into motion.
“We’ve got to ensure we’re nationally aggressive and ensure we’ve got a monetary and sustainable mannequin.”
