They have concepts of a plan

Sacramento State President Luke Wood revealed to The State Hornet that the school’s new multi-use stadium will be built in three phases and shared new information about Sac State’s potential move to the FBS

Wood said the first phase of construction on the stadium will begin this year, adding around $2.5 million in new amenities, but did not share what the estimated final cost of the stadium would be.

This information comes off the heels of Wood making several public statements about Sac State making the jump to the FBS, the highest subdivision in college football. Wood said that Sac State has spoken with three FBS conferences in the region and that a move will not happen in 2025.

Whole article here: https://statehornet.com/2025/01/sac-state-stadium-construction-plans-fbs-luke-wood/

Here are some excerpts from a Sacramento Bee opinion piece about the proposed new Sac State football stadium written by Tom Philp yesterday. The article is too long for me to copy and paste in its entirety. The author is of the opinion that Dr. Wood has made a lot of public comments about how fast things are happening in regards to the new stadium and Sac's move up to FBS with little to show for it so far. The author also is critical about how difficult it has been for the Bee to obtain factual information from the university concerning the actual plans, projected costs and funding for all the changes that Dr. Wood has said are currently underway in Sac State Athletics.

It is going to take about twice as long as planned for Sacramento State to get its first glimpse of what it may cost to build a gleaming new football stadium. The project’s first cost estimate, initially scheduled for completion in February, now won’t be done until this summer at the earliest.

Frankly, the university could use the time. It has been struggling ever since that initial September announcement to promptly provide some basic public information about where things stand with this ambitious project. The best chance for success is for Sac State to be an open book, particularly with the students who are paying a disproportionate share of the cost of university athletics.

University President Luke Wood had no cost estimate in hand when he confidently unveiled his plan to build a 25,000-seat stadium on the same site as the temporary facility that has been the football team’s home for decades. But he did set in motion a crucial analysis to get a better idea of what a stadium might cost and to assess local residents’ interest in watching Sacramento State football play some tougher competition in a truly modern facility.

That September announcement included plans to contract with a San Francisco-based architectural firm, Populous, “to create the conceptual design for the stadium.” To its credit, the university has provided The Bee with its $318,000 contract with Populous.

Other than releasing the Populous contract, every other attempt by The Bee for information about university athletics has been slow-walked by the university. Sacramento State has been committing its own version of “delay of game,” a football penalty when the offense doesn’t get the play off in time.

Wood is attempting to achieve something that has eluded all his predecessors: pooling public and private funds into the nine-figure sum needed to build a stadium suitable for the Sacramento State and for top-division football. This feat will not be easy. Yet belief in its prospects is diminished by Wood’s administration slow-walking any request for basic information about this project.

In hindsight, it’s now pretty clear that Wood did not have much research about costs and revenues when he confidently announced his plans to build this state-of-the-art football stadium last September. He’s now learning on the fly. It would be a coup for the region to climb into the higher echelons of this treasured college sport. But given how little we currently know, it’s simply too soon to tell.

Whole article here: https://www.sacbee.com/opinion/article297901063.html

7. We have Combat Sports and Martial Arts University – Combat U – is a first-of-its-kind program.
8. My brother is part of the local braintrust.

So who wants to bet against Dr. Wood?

Is it logical for Sac pro soccer and the Hornets to share a facility? Is FC Republic committed to the Railyards?

Been silently watching and reading this story with great interest.
It would be great to see both Causeway teams go FBS. However, it is just as likely that Sac loses football as it is to get to FBS. They have very limited options since neither of the West Coast conference seem at all interested. Seemingly, the Pac 12 and MW have both said no thanks to adding a financially challenged school with second rate facilities.
Dr. Wood may have started this with great, albeit naive, intentions. But at this point, he is dragging out this story as a means of portraying accomplishment and distracting from the major financial issues Sac State is facing.

Could it be we are interpreting Dr. Wood all wrong regarding the FCS to FBS transition? Could it mean a transition from Financially Challenged Situation to Financially Broke Situation?

I am SO stoked that we got a MW invite, football included or not. I can’t imagine we would join the conference without serious plans to join for football in the future, and having that landing pad set with our new conference affiliation is really fantastic for the future of UCD football. Now, sac joining the FBS as an independent is arguably worse than just staying in FCS with current conference alignment. We saw what happened when Idaho was FBS independent, and the csu system is facing many more challenges unrelated to football already, that could leave sac as a loner without much support to back them. They don’t have the insane levels of support financially like a say, liberty university did when they moved up, no matter what Luke Wood says.

It's my understanding that that schools cannot individually make this decision, it has to be decided by the conference.

Soccer and football can share a stadium but aren’t prefect roommates. Soccer is like baseball in that there is a range of acceptable field dimensions, but the preferred dimensions are significantly wider than a football field. At elite levels they want different turf profiles. Soccer will want natural grass cut shorter and elite foreign players will refuse artificial turf. Football tends to make do with (or even celebrate) adverse field conditions, just ask the Packers or Bills. So shared stadiums tend to skew to soccer specs because of how temperamental South American soccer stars are. I saw one cry one time that he couldn’t play because the water droplets were too big and he wanted the sprinklers changed to a finer mist. A shared stadium could work with current USL/FCS talent. But if both teams upgraded, an MLS/FBS relationship would be more strained. Here’s an example of overlaid striping.

9 - We signed a $318,000 contract for conceptual plans for the new stadium
10 - We’re going to be able to give more athletic scholarships
11 - We’re raising student fees by @$2,700 for 2025 (fees are covered by athletic scholarships)

It’s what our student athletes deserve. And the rest of Sac State students deserve…? What percent of the SCUS enrollment are student athletes? Football players?

has that 2,700 been ratified?

Actually not sure where it stands. Some type of raise probably certain. Likely hefty.

If a team goes independent , do they get any media rights monies?

Might as well shoot for the moon Sac!

https://www.southbendtribune.com/story/sports/college/football/2025/01/20/notre-dame-football-college-football-playoff-money-payout-performance-bonus/77695626007/

if they can sign a deal with NBC, more power to them. UCONN and UMASS get decent basketball money, probably an order (or two) of magnitude more than Big Sky basketball money.

Dr. Mike: I always thought Notre Dame Football was an interesting hybrid. They have an agreement with the ACC to play 5 conference teams per season (for stability) and still retain their independent status.
This year they reaped the benefits keeping all the media money from the playoffs. Will be interesting to see if other programs follow suit. We’ve entered a different era.

UCLA athletics lost $51.8 Million last year, and over $200 Million in the previous 6 or 7 years.

Movielover: I believe it. Does UCLA have the donor base to sustain this? CAL is having a challenging transition. Same with Stanford. Why in the world did they break up the Pac12? Asking for more media money. Sheesh!

don’t forget UCLA has to pay Cal $10M a year. There’s a story today by Jon Wilner about the ACC media deal snd the hosing that Cal and Stanford agreed to out of desperation. The unknown is that the ACC might pay out differently to FSU, Clemson, Miami and UNC due to their higher profile - more hosing!

Add to it the article earlier in the week about the grind the 4 cross country road trips are for basketball and this doesn’t seem sustainable.

Dr. Mike: This is insanity! The ACC has taken advantage of Cal and Stanford. Andrew Luck will evaluate and tweak Stanford Football. He sounds passionate and professional in his interviews.
Troy Taylor will need to perform. Same with Coach Wilcox at Cal. Heard Cal got the 5 star QB back originally committed to the Bears.

Wow, I never thought about it in that manner. Could it be that they think their program will not survive if left in FCS so they are trying to get supporters to fund this since otherwise they'd have no shot?

Wood is an idiot. The guy is not qualified to run an ice cream stand. In any other place he’d already be run out of town.

I think the Big Ten money hasn't kicked in yet - $65 - $75 Million per year minus money for Cal plus playoff money.

The UCLA BB HC said he looked at previous years results, and UCLA was below .500 east of the Mississippi every year. But Big Ten teams come once a year west, and stay in the same place. UCLA hoops travels east 4x? 4x vs 1x. Talk about a grind.

FWIW, UCLA Athletics needed over $200 Million over five years to cover shortfalls.

Four West Coast teams join a conference with 14 teams in another time zone, and they complain about travel?
But as far as east and west of the Mississippi is concerned Iowa and Nebraska are west of the Mississippi. Minnesota is on the west bank of the Mississippi, so there are 11 campuses east of the Mississippi and 7 west.