Athletics Master Village: An in-depth look at Boise State’s future plans for Athletics

After hinting at major news for the last few months, Boise State Athletics finally announced plans to upgrade its athletic facilities into an Athletics Master Village.

“We aim for excellence in all of our programs — academic and athletic — at Boise State,” said Boise State President Dr. Marlene Tromp. “We want to provide the best experience we can for every student and every student-athlete. We see an exciting future for Boise State University on all fronts, and this work provides a vision of which our fans and our state can be proud.”

The upgrade plans stem back to August 2021 when the athletics program partnered with AECOM’s sports practice. The purpose of this partnership was to review all of Boise State’s current athletic facilities and see where they could improve.

“We said in August that this would be our first step in determining what our programs need in order to be successful, and to be able to recruit and compete at a national level across the board,” said athletic director Jeremiah Dickey. “Now, our mission is to prioritize AECOM’s recommendations and determine what the future of Bronco Athletics is going to look like.”

According to Bronco Athletics, the new Athletics Master Village is meant to include all four key elements of the What’s Next Initiative launched on Nov. 16, 2021. The four elements include infrastructure, student-athlete experience, marketability and revenue generation.

The 12 areas of priority for the Athletics Master Village are listed in order of priority below:

New Varsity Center

The Varsity Center renovations are highlighted by adding a new weight room, sports performance, health and wellness suite, academic center and student-athlete nutrition and dining center. 

They also plan on adding administration offices and program support spaces to help out men’s and women’s tennis, beach volleyball, softball, track and field / cross country, gymnastics and soccer.

East and North Albertsons Stadium Renovations

The university plans to renovate Albertsons Stadium to give fans an “elite” stadium experience. The stadium will add more renovated restrooms and concessions by expanding its concourse to loop completely around the stadium. 

They plan to extend their capacity to over 40,000 by implementing more premium seating options throughout the stadium. They will complement their new seating capacity with a large east stadium lobby entrance.

Arguinchona Basketball Complex

This basketball complex will add a new sports performance center and upgrade its training room. Their efforts will include upgrading their weight room and adding new video board office suites.

ExtraMile Arena

The ExtraMile Arena will be adding more seats by creating a new mezzanine level sideline club, upgrading their Event Level club seating and creating new club and loge seating. 

Olympic Sports Arena 

The Olympic Sports Arena will be the university’s second arena along with the ExtraMile Arena.  This new arena will serve as a competition venue and a new practice gym for gymnastics. It will have 5,000 seats and hold locker rooms, offices and support spaces.

Indoor Tennis Complex

This indoor tennis facility will hold six courts and share a concourse with the Olympic Sports Arena. Boise State currently has three outdoor courts, so this would give them nine total courts.

BOAS Soccer Complex and Future Soccer Complex

The university will be adding LED lights to BOAS Soccer Complex. They will also be replacing the outdoor football practice field with a new soccer complex. 

This new soccer complex will contain new LED lights as well as a new video board. The locker rooms and offices from the Olympic Sports Arena will be utilized by athletes and coaches using the soccer complex.

Centralized Football Operations Complex and Upgrades

The university will be designating the area alongside the Boise River Greenbelt for all football operations.

After being replaced by the new soccer complex, the outdoor football practice field will be moved into this new designated football operations area east of the Caven-Williams Indoor Facility. 

Along with the relocation of the outdoor football practice field, the Bleymaier Football Center will be expanded to add more offices and programming space.

Dona Larsen Park

Dona Larsen Park will add dedicated programming space for track and field and cross country at the Ed Jacoby Track.

Huber Field will add covered and/or indoor hitting bays as well as a turf playing surface and LED lighting.

The plans also mentioned fan amenity upgrades and adding a new video board, but did not state where these upgrades will take place.

Beach Volleyball

Beach volleyball’s competition court will be relocated into the Athletics Master Village from its current area near the Lincoln Townhomes. Its new location will be west of the new soccer complex.

Because the courts will be next to the new soccer complex, both will share terrace/berm seating and concessions.

Brand Consistency

Boise State Athletics will be updating its branding and making these changes consistent with all of its athletics programs.

Integration With University Master Plan

The Athletics Master Village will keep the university modern to the 21st century as well as incorporate the Boise River Greenbelt into the campus. 

The campus will also become more pedestrian-friendly by converting almost everything east of the Student Union Building into a plaza.

Although no time frame was given for these plans, it is safe to assume that it will take well over three years to complete all of these upgrades.