Ohio State athletic director Ross Bjork joined 97.1 The Fan’s “Bishop and Friends” on Friday and discussed the 102-year-old Ohio Stadium.
“The vision of having a 65,000-seat stadium in 1922, people thought they were crazy, right?” Bjork reflected.
But having infrastructure of that age comes with challenges. The concrete is in constant need of repatching . Upgrades have to be made to improve cell service . With the expansion of the College Football Playoffs and the Blue Jackets hosting an outdoor game at “the Shoe” on March 1, OSU is being forced to winterize the facility .
“How do we maintain that prestige of it, that it is for the state of Ohio, but also modernizing it?” Bjork asked.
There are small, simple changes he would like to make soon – relocating trash receptacles that are “sort of in concourses” and moving the TV trucks to somewhere less visible, for instance – but making significant renovations will cost money, and OSU already a budget shortfall estimated to be at least $10 million .