Missouri Board of Curators signs off on indoor football practice facility: the details
The University of Missouri’s new indoor football practice facility got its final seal of approval when the Board of Curators gave a unanimous thumbs up to the project Wednesday afternoon.
The $33.1 million project will funded through private donations. Groundbreaking is this fall and it is scheduled to be completed by December 2022.
The 86,400-square-foot facility will include a full-length football field. It will be located adjacent to the South End Zone Complex, which opened in 2019.
Missouri is working with St. Louis-based HOK and Kansas City-based HOK-Sport on the pre-design programming and planning.
“We are grateful for the donors who have stepped forward with transformational gifts in support of this significant project that will benefit not only Mizzou Football, but several of our other teams, too, in future years no matter the weather in Mid-Missouri,” Mizzou athletic director Jim Sterk said in a news release. “We are thankful for the donors who believe in Mizzou and who are committed to helping us achieve excellence throughout our athletics program.
“Mizzou Football enjoys tremendous momentum under Coach (Eliah) Drinkwitz and his staff, and having a convenient, year-around training facility with a full-length football field to practice will help bring Mizzou in line with other SEC programs from a facilities standpoint. This is another piece of the puzzle as we work together to fulfill Coach Drinkwitz’ bold vision for our program.”
Drinkwitz expressed gratitude that the project is moving forward.
“I’m grateful to our Board of Curators and our athletics administration for making our Indoor Practice Facility a reality,” Drinkwitz said in the school’s release. “This is an important commitment to our program. An indoor space to train and practice is crucial to our player development efforts.”
Mizzou Athletics got other good news on Wednesday when the SEC announced it was making a $23 million supplemental revenue distribution on top of its regular payments to its 14 members for the 2020-21 fiscal year “to help mitigate the financial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on SEC athletics programs.”
According to the conference, the SEC is using future media rights revenue increases beginning in 2025 to cover the cost of the $23 million payments. The SEC still projects annual distributions to each school will increase beyond that point.
This story was originally published May 19, 2021 at 5:51 PM.