The fact that the people of McKinney, Texas just voted to put $50.3 million towards a new 12,000-seat football stadium for their high school team isn’t surprising. This is Texas. We’ve all seen Friday Night Lights. We know how this works.
What might be surprising is that it’s not even going to be the biggest high school football stadium in the region. The town of Allen is building a $60 million, 18,000-seat stadium just four miles away while the town of Katy will open a $62.5 million stadium in 2017.
McKinney’s stadium might actually be the most expensive of them all when it’s all said and done. A $12.5 million bond approved in 2010 will also be applied to the project, bringing the grand total to $62.8 million.
To put that in perspective, that’s more than it cost to build Jerry Richardson Stadium, home of UNC Charlotte football, in 2013 ($45 million).
To put it in even more perspective, the stadium’s 12,000 capacity will be bigger than the stadiums that FCS college football programs Dayton, Colgate, Eastern Illinois, and Coastal Carolina call home, just to name a few. Everything, as you’ve no doubt heard, really is bigger in Texas.
The stadium will also be used for used for soccer games, band competitions, playoff games, and other events. So at least this won’t be a $63 million-investment that sits empty most of the year.
