Ohio State has never been shy about spending money on football. But even at one of the sport’s biggest programs, the Woody Hayes Athletic Center has started to show the strain of running a modern college football operation. More coaches, more analysts, larger rosters, and the demands of recruiting and player development have all created a simple problem: there is not enough room. That problem is about to get a costly solution.

The Buckeyes are planning a $125 million overhaul of the Woody Hayes Athletic Center. Athletic director Ross Bjork said on August 12 on 97.1 The Fan that Ohio State wants to break ground on in 2028, with the project expected to take roughly 12 to 16 months once construction begins. However, there’s still a massive requirement that’s missing to start construction.

“We had about $40 million raised. We need to get to $125 million,” Bjork said. “So, now we’re in our aggressive mode. We have a lot of proposals out in front of people. If all of those things come together, we can get an architect on board. We can really map out a timeline. I would like to start construction sometime in the calendar year of ’28.”

The need for the renovation has been there for a while. Bjork has often cited space as one of the biggest problems in the current facility. The athletic center has been home to Ohio State since 1987, and the program has grown considerably since then. The proposed project would expand the building while renovating much of the existing space. Within that, the north side would receive some of the most significant changes.

“All the team breakout rooms, the equipment room, the locker room, the training room and the team meeting room. All of that can be renovated on that side. And then on the east side of the building, we need to do offices. The coaches’ offices need to have a new space. Right now, if Larry Johnson wants to watch film with Kenyatta Jackson, somebody’s got to leave the room because they’re in the same room,” Bjork further added.

In the current NIL environment, fundraising has become much more important. Ross Bjork, ever since he became AD in 2024, has done just that. In just his first year, he helped create a $20 million roster that won the national championship and has sustained that financial pipeline.

For starters, the program has generated a school-record $336.1 million in athletics revenue in the 2025 fiscal year. The program brought $81.65 million alone through ticket sales.

Ross Bjork has a plan to generate that $125 million

OSU has been a perennial blueblood and has always remained at the top tier of financial power. Former athletic director Gene Smith said Ohio State had raised more than $930 million in private support since 2005. And now, Ohio State has found new sources of funding rather than relying on traditional ones.

“It’s going to happen,” Ross Bjork said, as per the Columbus Dispatch. “It could happen in three years from now. It could happen two years from now or five years from now. But we will have a $500 million athletic budget at some point in time very soon. We have that capability.”

Right now, the Buckeyes have around 25,000 donors, and Bjork wants to aggressively expand that donor base. According to him, there are well over 12 million OSU fans, and even 1 percent coming on board would mean sustainable operations for the athletic department for the foreseeable future.

Last month, the program also inked a lucrative $17 million-per-year jersey patch deal with JPMorgan Chase. That deal was more than twice as financially lucrative as even some NBA patch deals. It also included NIL opportunities and promotions for OSU.