SOUTH BEND – Notre Dame’s new indoor football practice field won’t approach Northwestern’s $260 million lakeside complex. There will be no bowling alley or laser tag, as there are at Clemson, or locker TVs, as there are at Texas.

It won’t be as opulent as Oregon’s $68 million shrine to Nike.

What it will do is supply the Fighting Irish a space devoted to football and relieve stress on the 30-year-old Loftus Sports Center. Loftus has a 352-yard oval for track and field but also is used by other varsity teams, club sports and marching band. During the winter, it is used 18 hours a day.

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“We put a building over a football field. It doesn’t have a ton of other things,” athletic director Jack Swarbrick said.

Notre Dame has the cash and cachet to do more. According to a Forbes magazine report released this week, Notre Dame is the nation’s seventh-most valuable team with revenues of $112 million. A 10-year contract with NBC brings in a reported $15 million a year, and the university has a 10-year, $90 million apparel deal with Under Armour.

Yet it is the nature of the arms race — the never-ending contest to build bigger and better — that Notre Dame’s Guglielmino Athletics Complex now seems moderate, compared to peers. The Gug, which opened in 2005, measures 96,000 square feet and cost $21 million. It has football coaches’ offices and meeting rooms, locker rooms, a sports medicine section, plus conditioning and weightlifting equipment.

New facilities are often looked at “as an arms race,” coach Brian Kelly acknowledged.

“This was a necessary piece for our student-athletes to manage a very hectic schedule that we have,” he said. “We had an indoor facility that was really being run from 5:30 a.m. to almost midnight with intramurals and sports.

“It made it difficult for our football to train in there at an acceptable time. It was overdue, and we’re thankful we were able to get it done.”

Kelly said he did not think absence of a football-only indoor facility affected recruiting.

Swarbrick said the Irish could not easily kick footballs inside Loftus and that the track cuts off part of the football field. Players sometimes fell onto the track, he said, creating safety concerns. He said timetable of construction was hastened by the NCAA’s new rules on time management.

Cost is undisclosed for the 111,400-square-foot Irish Indoor Athletics Center, which is scheduled to be completed by July. It was underwritten by benefactors, according to Notre Dame.

It is being built on the westernmost field of the LaBar Practice Complex and will be used by men’s and women’s soccer in addition to football. Use might expand to community events, club sports and other events.

“We’re not focused on any sort of amenities, if you will,” Swarbrick said. “It sends the wrong message for us. Because it’s not what we’re about.”

Contact IndyStar reporter David Woods at david.woods@indystar.com or call 317-444-6195. Follow him on Twitter: @DavidWoods007.