Everything is bigger in Texas. And that includes high school football.
Allen High School, located in a growing suburb of Dallas, has approved the construction of a new stadium to house their football team that will break ground next month. The price tag is a whopping $60,000,000 and comes at a time when most school districts are slashing budgets just to keep their doors open.
So how does a school of 5,000 students justify a new, state-of-the-art stadium that seats 18,000 and a video scoreboard?
It’s because football is big business in Texas. Heck, they have the largest high school band with 800+ people (see video) so you can see that they go all out in Allen, Texas.
Allen High School is one of the largest schools in the state and their football team is one of the best. The Allen Eagles are winners of the Texas 5A state title and finished as the No. 2 team in the RivalsHigh Top 100 football rankings in 2008.
The new stadium will feature:
Video Scoreboard
Two level press box with film deck and Observation deck
Home side reserved seating with seat backs
1,5000 additional parking spaces with 4,500 total parking spaces
18,000 seat Stadium with upper deck seating including:
5,000 reserved seating,
2,700 General Admission
4,000 Students
5,300 Visitor
1,000 Band
Their old stadium seats around 8,000 and was built 30 years ago. They bring in another 7,000 or so portable seats for fans to max it out. Many people stand to watch the game and a trip to the bathrooms can take quite awhile.
The facilities are outdated and overrun so having a new stadium constructed is not unexpected. Dropping $60 million is a little outrageous but this is the team that helped fill Texas Stadium with 50,000 last year.
And one way to look at it is that the new stadium is just half of the expenditure.
The stadium was part of a larger $120 million bond package passed in May 2009 that included nearly as much money for a state-of-the-art auditorium for performing arts.
Allen High School, located in a growing suburb of Dallas, has approved the construction of a new stadium to house their football team that will break ground next month. The price tag is a whopping $60,000,000 and comes at a time when most school districts are slashing budgets just to keep their doors open.
So how does a school of 5,000 students justify a new, state-of-the-art stadium that seats 18,000 and a video scoreboard?
It’s because football is big business in Texas. Heck, they have the largest high school band with 800+ people (see video) so you can see that they go all out in Allen, Texas.
Allen High School is one of the largest schools in the state and their football team is one of the best. The Allen Eagles are winners of the Texas 5A state title and finished as the No. 2 team in the RivalsHigh Top 100 football rankings in 2008.
The new stadium will feature:
Video Scoreboard
Two level press box with film deck and Observation deck
Home side reserved seating with seat backs
1,5000 additional parking spaces with 4,500 total parking spaces
18,000 seat Stadium with upper deck seating including:
5,000 reserved seating,
2,700 General Admission
4,000 Students
5,300 Visitor
1,000 Band
Their old stadium seats around 8,000 and was built 30 years ago. They bring in another 7,000 or so portable seats for fans to max it out. Many people stand to watch the game and a trip to the bathrooms can take quite awhile.
The facilities are outdated and overrun so having a new stadium constructed is not unexpected. Dropping $60 million is a little outrageous but this is the team that helped fill Texas Stadium with 50,000 last year.
And one way to look at it is that the new stadium is just half of the expenditure.
The stadium was part of a larger $120 million bond package passed in May 2009 that included nearly as much money for a state-of-the-art auditorium for performing arts.
