Each year, the NCAA Indoor Championships bring together more than 600 of the nation’s top collegiate athletes across 34 events, creating one of the most intense and compact championship environments in American sports. Many of the sport’s most memorable NCAA indoor championship performances have come from athletes such as Grant Holloway in the 60‑meter hurdles, Mondo Duplantis in pole vault, Tyra Gittens in the pentathlon, Cole Hocker in the mile, and Courtney Okolo in the 400 meters — a testament to the level of competition showcased at this championship.
Indoor arenas place spectators close to the action, amplifying the atmosphere and placing even greater importance on the quality and reliability of the competition venue.
Over the past two decades, the NCAA has increasingly relied on elite indoor venues with banked 200-meter tracks, advanced timing systems, and specialized field-event layouts — a standard both the Tyson Center and CrossPlex helped define.
Few indoor venues in the country carry the competitive pedigree of the Randal Tyson Track Center. Since opening in 2000, the facility has been synonymous with elite collegiate performance, hosting more NCAA Division I Indoor Championships than any other venue in the 21st century.
Spanning roughly 106,000 square feet and seating approximately 5,500 spectators, the Tyson Center is one of the largest dedicated indoor track venues in collegiate athletics. Its design was shaped heavily by legendary Arkansas head coach John McDonnell, whose vision was to build a facility capable of hosting national championships and producing world-class performances. That vision has defined the building ever since.
A World Athletics Certified Indoor Facility, the Tyson Center has welcomed 13 NCAA Division I Indoor Championships, and its track has produced 22% of all Division I Championship records.
At the heart of the venue is a 200-meter permanent banked track with a Mondo Super X 720 surface, resurfaced in 2021 to maintain the speed and consistency for which the facility is known. A 60-meter straightaway sits inside the oval, allowing sprint and hurdle events to run independently of the curve.
The track’s origins are part of its legend. The surface was originally constructed for the 1993 IAAF World Indoor Championships in Toronto before being acquired by the University of Arkansas. Once installed in Fayetteville, it quickly earned a reputation for producing exceptional performances — so much so that the venue became widely known as “The Fastest Indoor Track in the World.” Numerous collegiate, American, and world-class marks have been set on its surface, reinforcing its status as one of the premier competition tracks globally.
The Tyson Center’s future is just as busy as its past. It is already tentatively scheduled to host the 2027 NCAA Division I Indoor Championships and multiple SEC Indoor Championships through 2035.
For athletes and coaches, the appeal is simple: the Tyson Center delivers a predictable, high-performance environment year after year. For meet directors, it offers a proven championship infrastructure capable of handling the sport’s biggest indoor moments.
While the Tyson Center represents decades of tradition, the Birmingham CrossPlex quickly built its own reputation as one of the premier indoor track venues in the country. Opened in 2011, the 750,000-square-foot multi-sport complex was designed from the ground up to host major events — and it has done exactly that.
At the center of the facility is a Mondo 200-meter hydraulically banked track featuring a Mondotrack WS surface installed in 2010. The bank can rise or lower in minutes, allowing the venue to transition seamlessly between flat-track and banked-track configurations. With eight sprint lanes, dual horizontal-jump runways, dual high-jump areas, and dedicated throws sectors, the CrossPlex was engineered for championship-level competition.
Its hosting résumé reflects that ambition. The CrossPlex has welcomed:
And it is slated to host the 2027 NCAA Division II Indoor Championships.
Beyond track and field, the CrossPlex includes an Olympic-size natatorium, volleyball courts, broadcast-ready infrastructure, meeting rooms and hospitality suites, event and exhibition space for conferences and tournaments — all of which support sporting events, community programming, trade shows, and entertainment events throughout the year.
But for indoor track athletes, the draw is the surface itself. The CrossPlex is one of only a handful of hydraulically banked Mondo tracks in the world, and its combination of speed, consistency, and engineering precision has made it a favorite among sprinters, jumpers, and distance runners alike.
As the NCAA crowns its next set of indoor champions, both the Randal Tyson Track Center and the Birmingham CrossPlex will once again demonstrate why they remain at the center of collegiate track and field.
Each facility has carved out its own identity — one rooted in decades of tradition, the other in modern versatility — yet both share a commitment to providing athletes with world-class conditions. And at the core of both venues is a high-performance Mondo track surface built for speed, reliability, and the highest levels of competition.
For many athletes, performances on these stages become stepping stones to professional careers, global championships, and even the Olympic Games — a reminder of how influential the NCAA indoor season remains in shaping the future of the sport.
For the athletes competing this weekend, that means one thing: the stage is set with Mondo tracks.