Nebraska announces $20 million investment from Verizon to enhance Memorial Stadium cell service

Verizon has made a $20M investment to enhance the cell coverage inside Nebraska’s Memorial Stadium, The Athletic’s Mitch Sherman reported on Friday. Stadium-wide wifi will, however, be addressed in a future renovation project.

“No promise that everyone will be able to stream every game (via the upgraded cell service),” Nebraska Athletic Director Troy Dannen said, per Sherman.

Verizon has made a $20M investment to enhance the cell coverage inside Memorial Stadium.

"No promise that everyone will be able to stream every game (via the upgraded cell service)," Dannen says.

Stadium-wide wifi will be addressed in the future renovation project.

— Mitch Sherman (@mitchsherman) August 8, 2025

Memorial Stadium opened in 2023 and has been renovated on three separate occasions (1967, 1994 and 2000). Its current capacity sits at 85,458, although the stadium record in football sits at 91,585 fans (Sept. 20, 2014 vs. Miami). Its stadium record was actually set in the sport of volleyball, as 92,003 fans packed the stadium for an Aug. 30, 2023, matchup against Omaha.

Dannen first hinted at the partnership with Verizon back in Sept. 2024. This came just months after he was hired as the seventeenth Athletic Director in Nebraska athletics history. Prior to settling in Lincoln, Dannen was the AD at Washington (2022-23), Tulane (2015-23) and Northern Iowa (2008-15).

“The plan, as I understand it right now, is Verizon is looking at making a strong, eight-figure investment in the cellular service inside the stadium for next year,” Dannen said.

“I think the choice is gonna be, hopefully, we can get the cellular system up and improved a little bit. WiFi, it will be state of the art once the new stadium is done in the ’27-28 timeline. In the middle of that, part of what happened from last year to this year was also changing and getting on the university system, which we needed to do. Along with that does come a different level of security and access when we’re on the university’s system. Hopefully it’s something we’re gonna address in the new construction and in the next year, maybe cellular getting better.”

By new stadium, Dannen meant the planned renovation that is set to begin in 2026. Sport’s Illustrated’s Josh Peterson reported back in May that the cost of the renovation will climb above the original plans, settling somewhere between $500 million and $1 billion. The total cost is expected to be at least 1.5 times what it would have been under former Athletic Director Trev Alberts ( who is now at Texas A&M)’ plan of $450 million.

Nebraska’s first home game at Memorial Stadium this season is scheduled for Sept. 6 against Akron. Kick-off is scheduled for 7:30 PM on the Big Ten Network.