Greg Byrne has worked to raise money for a new Alabama arena for years, and on Friday the athletics director offered an update about the latest status.

Byrne recalled on “The Next Round” how architects told him in the last year how costs to build have skyrocketed amid inflation, at times by some $25 million. Byrne then shared a personal story about being stopped in a grocery store by a fan who wanted an update, and was concerned about Nate Oats’ future in relation to the arena.

Byrne then listed all the Alabama coaches who would use the arena and noted that none of them want the new building more than him.

“It is a priority,” Byrne said. “We have to balance that with financial realities. It’s not just saying, ‘Let’s go spend a quarter of a billion dollars. Anything else, the heck with it.’ But you know what’s really cool, is there’s such passion about wanting to do this. And so many schools are just trying to get people to care.”

Alabama in February 2022 approved a plan to build a new 10,000-seat arena on campus with an estimated cost at the time of $183 million. But Byrne has mentioned several times that officials didn’t anticipate inflation to rise at the rate that it did.