Dakota State University Athletics Event Center

Dakota State University’s new 54,000 SF Trojan Athletics Complex and Stadium was kicked off with JLG’s 2017 phased master plan for the Madison, SD, campus. In August 2024, the new Beacom PREMIER Complex, Brian Kern Family Stadium, and Blankley Field officially welcomed fans to a new era of DSU athletics. Connected to the Athletic Events Center, the Brian Kern Family Stadium consists of a 1,800-seat grandstand, concessions, team store, esports, and a new full-size synthetic turf football field, including premium team, training, and locker spaces. The $38 million Beacom PREMIER Complex—privately funded by stakeholders—is the first new DSU athletics facility since the Fieldhouse was finished in 1960, now offering a full-sized synthetic turf soccer field, an eight-lane 400-meter polyurethane track in Trojan blue, with a steeple chase pit and new sites for shot put, discus, and javelin. JLG met the needs of student-athletes, administration, coaches, academics, fans, and flexible hospitality alongside football stadium upgrades, a relocated track, an esports arena, a new soccer field, indoor gathering space, and an Athletics Hall of Fame. New supportive spaces include lockers, weight and training rooms, sports medicine, office and meeting space, hospitality/VIP areas, media suites, a biomechanics lab, space for the Institute on Human Movement & Aging, and classrooms. Today, DSU’s Complex and Stadium are making a long-term impact, helping increase student enrollment, expand academic growth, balance distribution of majors, and increase revenue-generating opportunities for both DSU and the greater Madison area.