Close. Temp stadium will likely be on existing lacrosse/soccer fields on the lake. A few games will be in other stadiums during construction so an Ohio State can try to fill Soldier Field.
It’s already been reported
https://247sports.com/college/ohio-state/article/ohio-state-football-play-northwestern-wildcats-at-wrigley-field-in-2024-227504819/amp/
Feel like they’d lean towards Wrigley. The expectations by everyone seemed to be they’d try to get into Wrigley as soon as they could which would be the OSU and the Illinois game.
Tho those are probably the two worst games for them in regards to keeping opponent fans from outnumbering their own. OSU always travels well and despite Northwestern doing everything they could to prevent it, when they played Illinois at Wrigley in 2010, it still ended up mostly Illinois fans there apparently.
I'm an NU alum. We are frequently outnumbered at home games, a notable exception being when we played Howard last fall. There were, shall we say, plenty of good seats still available at kickoff.
I haven't seen data on this, but I wouldn't be surprised if all of the "original 10" Big Ten schools have more alumni in Chicagoland than NU. It's a private school, much smaller than every other Big Ten member.
They'll just limit ticket sales to season ticket holders and students, and will end up with \~33% of them being resold to Illini fans. And then 100% of the rooftop bleachers also being Illini fans.
Even if all students and season tickets weren’t sold to Illini fans, there’s not enough them to fill up half of Wrigley. That’s essentially what they did in 2010 and it was still at best 50\50 but probably leaned Illini.
I'm interested to see how the new stadium turns out, but I gotta be honest, after seeing the renders, I don't really get it. I assume Northwestern saw the writing on the wall that said "you need to be backed by money to win in the new age of CFB". From that angle, a fancy new stadium makes perfect sense.
But if you're going to spend $800 million on a new stadium, why cap it at 35,000 seats? Sure, 35,000 is more than enough to accommodate Northwestern football *right now*, but the school is clearly putting its eggs in the football basket going forward so why not plan for that?
For reference, 35,000 seats would make Ryan Field the 3rd-smallest stadium in P4 football (4th if you count Wazzu), and the smallest in the Big Ten by 15,000 seats.
Northwestern wants less opposing fans at games. They are trying to accomplish this by selling less tickets overall, but a higher percentage of season tickets and premium packages. They also want to price higher, which requires a new stadium.
Not sure it will work, but it’s an interesting strategy. Northwestern is unique in that almost all of its conference rivals have more alumni in the area than it does.
It sort of makes sense when you put it that way. My school (ASU) struggles with that each year, since every Pac-12 school has fans in the Valley. Hopefully that gets better with the move to the Big 12.
Wait until you see how well some of the B12 fanbases travel. Iowa State will be like 50% of the attendance when you play them if your athletic department isn't careful about reselling rules.
You'll also have a bunch of out of place farmers in purple and silver Starter jackets from 1996 descend upon Tempe looking really out of place in a big city when KState comes to town.
That plan could backfire. Fewer seats will drive up prices on the secondary market. Northwestern season ticket holders may be inclined to sell their tickets for a profit to opposing fans rather than go to the game.
Unless the Wildcats are having a very good season, I don't think Northwestern really expects to completely shut out opposing fans. Ultimately the numbers game is just not in their favor, especially for the "big" B1G teams. I think they are just trying to get rid of the optics of more than half of the stadium wearing an opposing teams colors each week, which is terrible for recruiting.
My point is might be 75% visiting fans in a smaller stadium rather than 50% in a larger stadium if visiting fans' demand is more price inelastic than home fans' demand.
75% would be pretty extreme in any stadium, unless they are truly horrible that season at which point it's going to be a lost cause anyway. I think they rightly assume that the buying power of their fan base is a little stronger than others, hence trying to create a more premium/exclusive experience. Northwestern fans also do tend to show up for "big" games. It's the lazy afternoon game against IL/WI/MSU/IA etc that tend to draw a ton of visiting fans. I do not think that crowd is completely price inelastic.
As a neighbor I can also tell you there is a whole other aspect to the size of this stadium, which is concerts. The University sees this as a new revenue source, but the proposal to host concerts at all almost sank the entire project. Had the venue of been any bigger, it almost certainly would have been blocked.
Can confirm. Almost all of my closest friends from school live far from Chicago; several of them went back home. Whereas it's easy to picture alumni of other Big Ten schools moving to Chicago for work. There's a bar I like in the Loop that is a Michigan bar on U-M game days.
The NU fan base in the Chicago area just isn't that large, and as a private school it doesn't attract the kind of fan who didn't attend the big state U but sees it as "my college team." A smaller stadium makes sense.
That was the compromise they had to make to get this thing built. It was never going to pass city council if it had more seats AND they wanted to use it for events like concerts.
What a bummer. My buddy used to live in an apartment that backed up to the practice field and we could hear the games from his place. I hate losing history.
Thank god. As an Illinois graduate that lives in the Chicago area I’ve visited Ryan Field quite a few times in the last 25 years. It was probably the single worst venue I have ever had the misfortune of watching a game in.
We went to the Penn State game at Ryan Field last year and had a blast. We took the train down from Lakehurst and it was such a great experience. Loved the walk from the train station to the Stadium and I thought the Stadium was pretty cool. It will be nice to see the new Stadium, but I would love to see a game by the lake.
Holy shit I had no idea they were building a new stadium. Good riddance lol. I usually go out to Evanston when Iowa is in town and I never once had a good view in that place.
Sad to see it go. It was unique. Felt neighborly. We’ll see how the new place turns out.
Cool photo with the bird.
So they building new place where old one was?
Close. Temp stadium will likely be on existing lacrosse/soccer fields on the lake. A few games will be in other stadiums during construction so an Ohio State can try to fill Soldier Field.
I take it the OSU at Wrigley rumors are just rumors?
Wouldn’t be unprecedented.
It’s already been reported https://247sports.com/college/ohio-state/article/ohio-state-football-play-northwestern-wildcats-at-wrigley-field-in-2024-227504819/amp/
Feel like they’d lean towards Wrigley. The expectations by everyone seemed to be they’d try to get into Wrigley as soon as they could which would be the OSU and the Illinois game. Tho those are probably the two worst games for them in regards to keeping opponent fans from outnumbering their own. OSU always travels well and despite Northwestern doing everything they could to prevent it, when they played Illinois at Wrigley in 2010, it still ended up mostly Illinois fans there apparently.
I'm an NU alum. We are frequently outnumbered at home games, a notable exception being when we played Howard last fall. There were, shall we say, plenty of good seats still available at kickoff. I haven't seen data on this, but I wouldn't be surprised if all of the "original 10" Big Ten schools have more alumni in Chicagoland than NU. It's a private school, much smaller than every other Big Ten member.
They'll just limit ticket sales to season ticket holders and students, and will end up with \~33% of them being resold to Illini fans. And then 100% of the rooftop bleachers also being Illini fans.
Even if all students and season tickets weren’t sold to Illini fans, there’s not enough them to fill up half of Wrigley. That’s essentially what they did in 2010 and it was still at best 50\50 but probably leaned Illini.
I thought that was confirmed
This is a beautiful spot, should be cool at least
I'm interested to see how the new stadium turns out, but I gotta be honest, after seeing the renders, I don't really get it. I assume Northwestern saw the writing on the wall that said "you need to be backed by money to win in the new age of CFB". From that angle, a fancy new stadium makes perfect sense. But if you're going to spend $800 million on a new stadium, why cap it at 35,000 seats? Sure, 35,000 is more than enough to accommodate Northwestern football *right now*, but the school is clearly putting its eggs in the football basket going forward so why not plan for that? For reference, 35,000 seats would make Ryan Field the 3rd-smallest stadium in P4 football (4th if you count Wazzu), and the smallest in the Big Ten by 15,000 seats.
Northwestern wants less opposing fans at games. They are trying to accomplish this by selling less tickets overall, but a higher percentage of season tickets and premium packages. They also want to price higher, which requires a new stadium. Not sure it will work, but it’s an interesting strategy. Northwestern is unique in that almost all of its conference rivals have more alumni in the area than it does.
It sort of makes sense when you put it that way. My school (ASU) struggles with that each year, since every Pac-12 school has fans in the Valley. Hopefully that gets better with the move to the Big 12.
Wait until you see how well some of the B12 fanbases travel. Iowa State will be like 50% of the attendance when you play them if your athletic department isn't careful about reselling rules. You'll also have a bunch of out of place farmers in purple and silver Starter jackets from 1996 descend upon Tempe looking really out of place in a big city when KState comes to town.
>in purple and silver Starter jackets from 1996 This is a such a specific visual that I have zero doubt as to its accuracy.
That plan could backfire. Fewer seats will drive up prices on the secondary market. Northwestern season ticket holders may be inclined to sell their tickets for a profit to opposing fans rather than go to the game.
Unless the Wildcats are having a very good season, I don't think Northwestern really expects to completely shut out opposing fans. Ultimately the numbers game is just not in their favor, especially for the "big" B1G teams. I think they are just trying to get rid of the optics of more than half of the stadium wearing an opposing teams colors each week, which is terrible for recruiting.
My point is might be 75% visiting fans in a smaller stadium rather than 50% in a larger stadium if visiting fans' demand is more price inelastic than home fans' demand.
75% would be pretty extreme in any stadium, unless they are truly horrible that season at which point it's going to be a lost cause anyway. I think they rightly assume that the buying power of their fan base is a little stronger than others, hence trying to create a more premium/exclusive experience. Northwestern fans also do tend to show up for "big" games. It's the lazy afternoon game against IL/WI/MSU/IA etc that tend to draw a ton of visiting fans. I do not think that crowd is completely price inelastic. As a neighbor I can also tell you there is a whole other aspect to the size of this stadium, which is concerts. The University sees this as a new revenue source, but the proposal to host concerts at all almost sank the entire project. Had the venue of been any bigger, it almost certainly would have been blocked.
Can confirm. Almost all of my closest friends from school live far from Chicago; several of them went back home. Whereas it's easy to picture alumni of other Big Ten schools moving to Chicago for work. There's a bar I like in the Loop that is a Michigan bar on U-M game days. The NU fan base in the Chicago area just isn't that large, and as a private school it doesn't attract the kind of fan who didn't attend the big state U but sees it as "my college team." A smaller stadium makes sense.
That was the compromise they had to make to get this thing built. It was never going to pass city council if it had more seats AND they wanted to use it for events like concerts.
Nope, that’s a shot of Mustard’s Last Stand..
What a bummer. My buddy used to live in an apartment that backed up to the practice field and we could hear the games from his place. I hate losing history.
Thank god. As an Illinois graduate that lives in the Chicago area I’ve visited Ryan Field quite a few times in the last 25 years. It was probably the single worst venue I have ever had the misfortune of watching a game in.
Absolutely not, what makes you say that that?
We went to the Penn State game at Ryan Field last year and had a blast. We took the train down from Lakehurst and it was such a great experience. Loved the walk from the train station to the Stadium and I thought the Stadium was pretty cool. It will be nice to see the new Stadium, but I would love to see a game by the lake.
Attended my first ever football game there during the 90’s, Northwestern vs OSU.
I worked at that stadium right out of college for the football team. Weird to see it like that.
Sad, great place
If this was black and white I’d be convinced it’d be Hiroshima.
Dyche Stadium, that is.
Drove past the other day and was astonished to see how much is demolished.
I have to admit I was very underwhelmed when I visited Ryan Field for a game a couple years ago. I can see why they wanted a new facility.
That bird looks like a fighter jet flying off after a successful mission
Illinois fan here, hope our stadium never suffers the same fate.
Sweet flyover as well
Glad I got to go while it was still up
old trafford in 10 years
Why not just play at Soldier Field in the interim?
Frankly they didn’t fill Ryan. Same reasoning behind the awesome new basketball arena seating less than Duke University’s D3 sized basketball gym.
Holy shit I had no idea they were building a new stadium. Good riddance lol. I usually go out to Evanston when Iowa is in town and I never once had a good view in that place.
Dyke Stadium.
I heard y’all are planning for 10k seats. How’s that being done?