Rutgers athletics has seemingly always been playing a game of catch-up with its facilities, with a decent amount of work that still needs to be done to bring the university’s facilities to the same level as the rest of the Big Ten. Our last article in this series talked about what sort of renovations need to be done to Jersey Mike’s Arena (JMA) to bring it up to modern Big Ten standards. This article will be dedicated to talking about the costs of the projects proposed in the previous article, which
can be found here. All of the financial breakdown was done by Microsoft Co-Pilot.
Disclaimer: AI only uses the information available to it, meaning that the figures below were created using the specific information it has access to. On top of that, AI has been known to be inaccurate from time to time, yet we here at OTB still thought this was a worthwhile experiment to get people talking about the supposed incoming renovations to Jersey Mike’s Arena.
The AI was also able to break down the cost of the renovations discussed in the previous article into dollar amounts, based on contemporary building costs in the northeast.
Hard Construction Costs
· Lobby & exterior: $25–35M
· Concourse rebuild: $40–55M
· Restrooms & concessions: $15–20M
· Premium seating & clubs: $20–30M
· Technology upgrades: $10–15M
· Athlete spaces: $10–15M
Subtotal: $120–170M
Soft Costs
· Architecture & engineering: $12–18M
· Permitting & environmental: $2–4M
· Furniture, fixtures, equipment: $5–8M
· Contingency (10–15%): $15–25M
Subtotal: $34–55M
Total Project Range
$155M – $225M
After breaking down all of these changes and the new sources of revenue they could provide to the Athletic Department, Copilot came up with figures where Rutgers could gross about $16.2 million annually with all the changes, while having an operating cost of about $7 million dollars every year once everything is built out. The gross money Rutgers would earn includes an average of $5.1 million from premium seating, $4.8 million from general ticket revenue,$1.8 million from concessions and merch, $3.5 million from naming rights deals, and $1 million from different corporate partnerships. The corporate sponsorships these renovations would cultivate alone could be expected to generate around 1 million dollars in revenue a year, while the premium seating added could generate around $5 million in annual revenue. The naming rights deals that could also come of these renovations could be valued at $3.5 million per year by Copilot.
The timeline that Rutgers would take to pay off the renovation debt varies depending on a lot of different scenarios, making it hard to predict exactly how long it will take for Rutgers Athletics to gain a net profit on these changes. Different factors of funding, such as naming rights, donors, bonds, and premium revenue, could be going into renovating the arena as well, making it so that the athletic department does not have to foot the entire bill. It will be interesting to see where exactly each dollar will come from when the real arena renovations are in full swing. The plan included a phased construction timeline, spending 8-12 months renovating/adding the new exterior and lobby, 12-18 months on the concourse, restrooms, and concessions, 8-12 months on the premium seating and clubs, and 6-10 months on technology and athlete area renovations. The phased construction would be done in the off-season to minimize the impact on the arena’s operation.
