Athletic Director Ross Bjork sits down with The Lantern, details several changes coming to Ohio State Athletics

Noah Weiskopf
Fri, 18 Apr 2025 16:12:54 +0000
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Ohio State Athletic Director Ross Bjork visited The Lantern’s newsroom Thursday for a year-end interview with Sports Editor Noah Weiskopf.

During the conversation, Bjork discussed the possibility of a new ice arena, changes coming to the basketball game-day experience at the Schottenstein Center, potential modifications to the college football calendar and much more.

New ice arena

Currently, the women’s ice hockey team plays at the Ohio State Ice Rink, while the men’s ice hockey team shares the Schottenstein Center with the men’s and women’s basketball programs.

Those days, however, seem to be limited.

Bjork told The Lantern he’s committed to constructing a new ice arena that would accommodate both the men’s and women’s ice hockey programs.

“We’re working on those pieces, and that will really give both programs a jolt in a big way,” Bjork said.

Though Bjork said it’s still too early to pinpoint a completion date, he confirmed the first step will be organizing a funding plan, which will take place this summer.

After the initial step is taken, Bjork said Ohio State Athletics will then need to raise additional funds and get approval from the university’s Board of Trustees to hire an architect.?

Once that approval is granted — which could happen years down the road — Ohio State Athletics will need to finalize the arena’s design and go through a second authorization process, which Bjork said could happen in early 2027. At that point, construction could officially start on the likely 18-month project.

But Bjork said he isn’t focused on three years down the road; rather, he wants to get the project launched in the next few months if possible.

“Get the funding plan launched, get our capital campaign launched, we’re having conversations with donors, but until we have really the true pathway, you really can’t have a true conversation and expect a commitment,” Bjork said. “So, we need the outline by this summer, and that will allow us to press the pedal and try to get this thing off the ground.”

Schottenstein Center changes

In recent years, many Ohio State basketball fans have found the atmosphere at the Schottenstein Center to be underwhelming.

Bjork said he understands the frustration from fans and is actively working on making changes to the game-day experience.

“We have a lot of things in motion,” Bjork said. “We need to make Ohio State basketball ‘cool,’ if you will. For students, for recruits, for our fans; so, we’re working on a lot of things regarding game-day atmosphere.”

More specifically, Bjork said he wants to change the lighting in the Schottenstein Center to make the court appear as more of a stage. In addition, he hopes to get more students involved and experiment with the use of music for home games.

“We’re going through a whole iteration around our game-day atmosphere because we need to embrace Ohio State basketball,” Bjork said.

College football calendar

Bjork expressed his interest in making changes to the NCAA’s official college football calendar, backing what Ohio State football head coach Ryan Day has openly discussed numerous times.

The fall transfer portal for college football opened Dec. 9, 2024, and closed Dec. 28, 2024. Thanks to one of the most historic runs in college football history in the new, 12-team playoff, Ohio State got the short end of the stick in the fall transfer portal.

The Buckeyes won the 2025 National Championship Jan. 20, more than three weeks after the portal closed. NCAA rules allowed Ohio State and Notre Dame players five days to decide whether or not to enter the portal, allowing every team in the country to sit back and potentially poach players away from two premier schools.

“We’re all in favor of the player movement; it just needs to be structured differently,” Bjork said. “If we ever want to get back in academic nexus to this conversation — which we all say we do, we believe in that — we need to move the portal windows to the spring at the end of the academic year.”

Bjork also said he wants to change when high school players can sign — specifically allowing prospects to sign the summer before their senior year — and modify the playoff schedule, which he confirmed is actively being discussed.

“We have to fix the football calendar overall,” Bjork said.