This was unexpected.
Photo credit: Rice University
Rice University might build a new football stadium soon, according to a new report.
Although the Rice Owls football team’s home has already undergone improvements, Rice school administrators have stated that some significant changes are now required. With the help of a sports design firm, the institution finished a facilities master plan last year that addressed the 1950s building. The Houston Business Journal was informed more recently by Tommy McClelland, Rice’s director of athletics, that a “transformational” overhaul is required for the deteriorating stadium.
“We’re looking at whatever it takes. Our approach is we have to do something drastic. … Just putting new paint on what we have is not what we’re looking at,” McClelland told HBJ’s Chandler France.
While the university has made some renovations, such as upgrading seating and adding new spaces over the past two offseasons, a more extensive project has been postponed despite being a priority for athletic officials. Joe Karlgaard, the previous director of athletics, had hoped to oversee a major renovation of the 70,000-seat stadium before his departure in August 2023.
Rice had approved a design for a major renovation project in 2022, but that plan was put on hold. The project aimed to reduce the stadium’s capacity instead of building a new one, aligning it with other teams in the American Athletic Conference, which the school joined in July.
McClelland emphasized that if a new stadium were to be built, the project would need to focus on creating a multi-purpose venue that could be used off-season for concerts, soccer matches, and other events.
As you well know, I’m a longtime member of the Rice MOB, and I’ve been regularly attending Owl football games since 1988. I think I’m well qualified to say that as historic and beloved as the old place is, it’s nobody’s idea of a modern venue. The bench seats are uncomfortable. The concessions are meager. The bathrooms are only recently upgraded to something above “peeing on a cement wall” quality. The Owls haven’t been a big draw since the glory days of the 40s and 50s, and while much of that has been due to a not-often-good team, some of it is surely the overall fan experience. We haven’t been able to get a big name opponent into the stadium in something like 20 years; given a choice, schools like UT and now even UH will insist we play at NRG Stadium instead. I can’t blame them.
We’re all clear that this will cost a metric crap-ton of money, and will require the shaking down of many wealthy people and corporate entities. Rice fans have a broad array of Feelings about that, as the comments on the main Rice fan Facebook group will attest. This article hasn’t committed the athletic department to any course of action, but one doesn’t spill this sort of thing to the press if one isn’t already pretty far down the path. I look forward to seeing what comes next. Whatever it is, it will take some time to get there.
There’s also the fan experience of feeling like you’re on the surface of the sun on the east side of the stadium.
And to imagine it once hosted a Super Bowl…
Watched a HS playoff game there a couple of years ago. Our HS facilities are world class compared to Rice.
Tear it down and let the football team play at Reliant (that’s literally <3 miles away). Sell the vintage bleachers to alumini so they can adorn local man caves, next to their framed 1988 Monsters of Rock tour t-shirt. Turn the site into an on-campus park.
I remember former Rice president Lee Brawn saying that his successor would deal with the stadium, and so it has come to pass. Brawn has skated off into the sunset with his vast wealth, and Rice is there with its decrepit stadium, of course, I am against college football, the second most popular spectator sport in the world. I say, let the NFL be responsible to fund its farm system, the way that MLB does. Let universities go back to teaching.