is this just another scam to try de-emphasize the football program? At one time, ND's stadium had a classic look and one of the best in the land. Now, it looks like a stadium designed by committee. Isn't there somewhere else on campus these buildings could be located?
They added the academic / music features to present it to the ND people as an enhancement to the students experience. In fact I think the idea is to have expensive viewing locations for games. Notre Dame has perfected the art of subtle, embedded marketing, leveraging ND peoples love of the University for profitable market ploys.
Interestingly, they may have visited PNC Park in Pittsburgh for ideas. The Pirates put in a Club level where a bar/food/gathering environment is located behind the seats. People who go there have a good time , spend a good deal of money, and eventually the game itself becomes irrelevant.
As for the other buildings, the ND campus is only so big and other than Saturdays in the Fall the Stadium and parking lot area are huge dead spaces. After Grace Hall, etc. they wanted to stop building "sky scraper" style buildings to utilize space on campus and looking at Grace Hall it's easy to understand why.
Having music classes in one of the buildings will be great for the marching band (which is at least tangentially connected to the atheltic dept.) and it's also much closer to the state of the arts performing arts center on the southside of campus for everyone else.
All of the spaces that they are adding will be used well and appreciated by the students. You could also look at it this way: the modernization of the football stadium (the necessity of which is often debated itself) wouldn't have been possible without piggybacking off of improvements to academic and student life buildings; and given that ND is a top 15 university it's not difficult to understand why improving academic facilities is important.
My own opinion is that integrating student life "into" the stadium won't have much of an impact one way or the other. It is a creative utilization of space, and students are already pretty into football. Will it improve the learning experiences of students who get to utilize state-of-the-art classrooms? Yes. Will it improve the gameday experience? Who knows (though I am a fan of jumbotrons everywhere I've seen them utilized well...sorry!). Will it lead to increased donations from alumni? Uhh doubtful.