$139 million for a high school stadium? In football hotbeds, it's the norm. [View all]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2025/08/22/expensive-high-school-football-stadiums

https://archive.ph/sMhn9



The Wolves of Georgia’s Buford High School play in a football stadium that would be the envy of many college teams. It offers key supporters 15 luxury suites with catering services and TV monitors. Reporters work from its two press boxes. There are four locker rooms: two for the home team, two for visitors.

The facility — the most expensive high school stadium in a state that’s passionate about football — was funded by the city of Buford, some 40 miles outside Atlanta, and completed in July. Its cost? Roughly $62 million. “Everybody wants to be part of the stadium, from sponsors to ticket takers to spectators,” said Ryan Liccardo, a Buford High coach. “We sold bricks to inscribe names and families, and people took to that like a moth to a flame.”

High school football has long been an integral part of many communities’ identity, with the Friday night lights of gridiron games a point of pride. But some towns in the South and Midwest have taken their support to the next level, constructing mega stadiums with swank accoutrements for the teams, fans and, perhaps especially, prominent and deep-pocketed backers.

“The popularity of high school football drives the size of stadiums,” said Roger Noll, professor emeritus of economics at Stanford University. And while smaller cities and rural areas may not be affluent, they are densely enough populated to “generate crowds in the thousands.”

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Built at a cost of $139 million — which, adjusted for inflation, would be nearly $182 million today: Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium at McKinley Senior High School in Canton, Ohio. (Courtesy of Canton City School District)