Lexington, KY - The headquarters for the University of Kentucky’s football team will have a different look when coaches, players and support personnel return from spring break next month.
The university issued a request for proposal at the start of the year to enhance the cosmetics of the Nutter Training Facility through the creation and installation of custom-designed graphics, with interested parties to submit bids no later than Jan. 19. The project was awarded to Forty Nine Degrees, LLC, a Coldwater, Ohio-based design firm that specializes in sports-related branding and graphics.
Forty Nine Degrees specializes in branding athletic environments. It has designed, fabricated, and installed graphics for more than 50 Division I athletic programs, including five Southeastern Conference members. Forty Nine Degrees is currently working on the renovation of UCLA’s Pauley Pavilion and Xavier’s Cintas Center. It also has the resources of Celsius Technologies, a division of Forty Nine Degrees that develops interactive and technology solutions to compliment graphic design elements.
The plan is for the Nutter facility project, for which the winning bid was $141,700 and will be subsidized by athletic department funds, to be performed primarily during spring break and completed by March 16. Details of the plan Forty Nine Degrees will implement have yet to be finalized.
“We are excited to be partnering with UK athletics in graphically renovating the Nutter Center,” said Michael McClurg, president of Forty Nine Degrees. “We are conceptually working through ideas as we speak and are confident in the upcoming results.”
The scope of the job was broken down into about a half-dozen areas, including the main lobby, players’ lounge and the area outside the coaches’ offices, as well as the team meeting rooms and the individual position meeting rooms. Also open to be updated was the inconspicuous entrance to the facility, which currently has little or no signage indicating it is the football program’s headquarters.
“The Nutter Facility is the hub of our day-to-day football operations,” said UK athletic director Mitch Barnhart. “Keeping it up to date with state-of-the-art décor is attractive to recruits and their families. It’s also an encouragement and inspiration to our coaches and current players.”
Other than pointing out certain areas, however, the university’s RFP did not specify ways to change, update or improve the existing areas and thus remained open to suggestions by the bidders. In other words, the university left creating a new or fresh look to the creative people. And the final product that’s integrated into the building could indirectly impact Kentucky’s fortunes on the football field.
“I can’t see in any way how it couldn’t help,” said Steve Jones, the Kentucky recruiting editor at rivals.com, a network of websites dedicated primarily to news regarding college football and basketball recruiting. “That’s the first thing recruits look at when they visit — the quality of the facilities, how good and how they modern they look.
“But I think the general feeling from recruits is that Kentucky’s stuff is pretty good and up to standard — definitely good enough they feel they can have as productive a football career there as anywhere else. I’ve never really heard a recruit specifically say Kentucky’s stuff is vastly inferior in any way.”
This will be the second update in four years to the facility, which was originally constructed for $5.7 million and became the home of the Kentucky football program in 1987. It was expanded in 2002 with the addition of the Paul Oberson Football Office Complex. A comprehensive graphic-design package was also installed in 2008, but constantly updating and improving facilities has become a prerequisite in collegiate sports as the money involved continues to reach eye-popping levels. That’s especially true in the Southeastern Conference, which has claimed the last six national championships.
Kentucky advanced to a school-record five consecutive bowl games before that streak was ended this past season. Barnhart said the school has spent more than $14 million on its football facilities in recent years, and he expects that trend to continue.
“The Southeastern Conference has been the dominant force in college football in recent years,” he said. “Obviously, that’s an extremely competitive environment, and we’ve had some success. … In order to stay competitive, you have to keep moving forward, and this upgrade is part of our ongoing investment in our football program.”