This project could cost billions of dollars to implement.
At least two members of the United States House of Representatives, a Democrat and a Republican, are worried about the state of historic college football stadiums and those two members want to do something about maintaining places like the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California and making them into viable 21st century state of the art venues. In case you have not noticed sports owners across the board are demanding public help to either build or renovate facilities including eight Major League Baseball owners.
The Historic Stadium Caucus is what the House members are calling their group and the plan is to develop strategies to preserve and modernize facilities that in some cases are more than 120 years old, but in a historically meaningful way. Louisiana Republican Garret Graves and Wisconsin Democrat Mark Pocan head up the caucus. The 18 stadiums that have been identified for upgrades are Penn State’s Beaver Stadium, Wisconsin’s Camp Randall Stadium, the Cotton Bowl in Dallas, Mississippi State’s, Davis Wade Stadium, Penn’s Franklin Field, the University of Washington’s Husky Stadium, Auburn’s Jordan-Hare Stadium, the Los Angeles Coliseum which is a facility that keeps getting upgrades, University of California’s Memorial Stadium, Clemson’s Memorial Stadium, Illinois’ Memorial Stadium, the University of Cincinnati’s Nippert Stadium. The Rose Bowl, San Jose State’s Spartan Stadium, LSU’s Tiger Stadium, Ole Miss’ Vaught-Hemingway Stadium, Duke’s Wallace Wade Stadium and the Yale Bowl in New Haven, Connecticut. Graves and Pocan plan to send a “Dear Colleague” letter asking other Congressional members to join the caucus. Part of the Graves-Pocan plan is to add to security enhancements and technological upgrades along with creating new infrastructure for the stadiums. That all sounds good but there is no price tag on the project nor is there a plan to fund the enhancements. It could cost billions of dollars for the upgrades.
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