Watch Missouri State football coach Ryan Beard during media day
Ryan Beard addresses the media during Missouri State football’s annual media day at Plaster Stadium on Saturday, Aug. 3, 2024.
Missouri State athletics director candidate Roger Denny said during a public forum that he would like to put $100 million into the Bears football program and double the athletics department’s budget to become more successful.
Denny, the current Chief Operating Officer and Executive Senior Associate Athletics Director at the University of Illinois, was the first of three finalists to speak to the Missouri State community. Appalachian State Deputy AD Patrick Ransdell will be on campus Friday with Arizona State Associate AD Vince Volpe visiting next Monday.
The three were the announced finalists to replace Kyle Moats, who left Missouri State in June for the same position at Eastern Kentucky.
Addressing about 25 community members in Glass Hall on campus, Denny said his top priority would be to get in and get Missouri State’s day-to-day operations where they need to be. The focus would then shift to getting the student-athletes the resources they need.
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Missouri State AD candidate says Plaster Stadium, football program needs a $100 million-plus renovation project
Part of that focus will go to renovating buildings. There may be no bigger need on campus than renovating Plaster Stadium, the home of the football team.
“That project is going to have to become some broad-scale community partnership to do it right,” Denny said. “If you told me that, yeah, we need to do a $5 million project to update some branding, fix some bathrooms and repaint some things, yeah, we’ll figure that out but that’s not going to move the needle.
“I’ve talked to President Williams and I know he’s said this… it’s going to be a $100 million-plus project.”
Denny said he hadn’t had a facilities tour but drove around Plaster Stadium. He noted the parking lots south of Grand St. as a spot that could give Missouri State some “unique opportunities to build in new commercial enterprise.” He compared it to a recent visit to Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wisconsin, to see the Packers’ “Titletown” development near the historic stadium. It’s somewhat similar to what’s been built around Busch Stadium in St. Louis with Ballpark Village.
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“That’s not nothing new,” Denny said. “NFL moved into that strict environment where 51% of football-related revenue goes to the players. They had to find ways to generate non-football-related revenue. What they did was go and develop big multi-use districts right outside the stadium.”
Denny doesn’t envision all $100-plus million going into Plaster Stadium but it needs to be spread out among the football program’s needs. He said he heard the football facilities are “really lacking” in terms of locker rooms, etc. but the rest of the money would go into the fan experience.
Roger Denny would want to double Missouri State’s athletics budget
In addition to a nine-figure project to enhance Missouri State’s football facilities, Denny spoke to his desire to get the university to essentially double its athletics budget.
According to Missouri State’s NCAA financial report for fiscal year 2022, the university operated on a $30 million athletics budget. When the university announced it was moving to Conference USA in May, the previous Missouri State administration said the budget would increase to around $36 million and be budget neutral.
“I think we need to be a $50-$60 million program to have the success that we want,” Denny said.
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Denny pointed to schools like Nevada, Colorado State and East Carolina as schools with $50-60 million programs in a similar metro area to Springfield as successful ones. He said those schools have mapped out ways to use resources wisely in order to make a larger impact.
“I think if this community is really engaged, that’s highly possible,” Denny said. “If we’re going to do that, we’re going to do it at a time where it’s cost-neutral to the campus. We’re not asking for any additional input from the campus.”
Plaster Stadium getting $100 million and the athletics budget sounds neat. But who’s paying for it?
On paper, Denny might be the most confusing finalist of the three due to his 15 years of legal experience as a tax attorney. He’s only been with Illinois’ athletics department for three years. His work as a partner at his previous law firm had many sports-centric duties, allowing him to represent coaches and build various databases for collegiate spending.
Some of his duties also helped him build relationships in the Springfield area. In those relationships, he hopes it will help pay for some of the high-dollar projects that he’s eyeing.
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“There’s a transactional way to engage the community, too, that I bring some unique skills,” Denny said. “Especially when you think of Plaster Stadium and some of the other facilities around here that need attention. I’ve gotten to know the budget. We’re going to have to leverage this community and the affinity in this community in a big way just to get the operating budgets in this department to a place where our teams can compete in Conference USA and win at the level in the same way we’ve historically won.
“If we’re going to do that, we’re going to have to start tapping some of that capacity and we’re going to have to find new ways to do things like a big, large-scale project at Plaster Stadium or otherwise. One of the answers I think has to be evaluated is through a big, public-private partnership that involves several governmental units, private enterprise and public enterprise and see if we can pull a community and their assets together in a way that benefits a heck of a lot more than athletics.
“It’s not the most humble thing I would say today, but you’re not going to find anyone in college athletics that’s done more of that work than I have.”
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Publish date : 2024-08-12 11:55:00
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