Northwestern to play 2024 and 2025 home games at lakefront practice field
Michigan is scheduled to play in Evanston in 2025.
April 10th, 2024 at 10:33 PM ^
That's wild. Does it even seat anyone?
April 10th, 2024 at 10:54 PM ^
The article mentions that they'll be building some kind of "structure", although there aren't really any details on it yet.
They're going to seat 10,000 people and the diehard Michigan fans are going to go nuts trying to get tickets.
I was thinking, "Hell yeah I'd go to that", and then realizing that could be a very expensive ticket even though it's Northwestern football.
April 11th, 2024 at 11:02 AM ^
Northwestern sent an email to season ticket holders that said “we will likely host all non-conference games plus at least one conference game at the temporary facility.” Think the thought is playing these games early while the weather is nice and then using other Chicagoland venues when the weather would have quite an impact on a field right next to the lake. Plus they'd want to cash in on the number of tix they could sell when Michigan, OSU, Wisconsin, PSU, etc comes into town. Michigan will very likely not play at this temporary facility.
April 11th, 2024 at 11:16 AM ^
The OP’s title needs editing. It is “some” home games. Very unlikely Michigan plays on this field.
Bring your lawn chairs for the game
April 10th, 2024 at 10:42 PM ^
Anything is an improvement from Ryan Field. Have attended Texas high school games w better facilities.
Decent academics.
Sports - not so much...
I was at the M00N game. Legit the perfect atmosphere for that game.
By perfect atmosphere, you simply mean there was 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, and 1% other gases to breathe there, correct?
was also at the M00N game. not only was the stadium a dump but the concession food was worst I've ever tried. even middle of nowhere county softball concession stand pretzels were better than the soft pretzels served at Ryan Field.
The best soft pretzels are in Columbus.
April 11th, 2024 at 10:27 AM ^
What about soft cookies?
April 10th, 2024 at 10:45 PM ^
Not counting on big crowds, huh?
April 10th, 2024 at 10:47 PM ^
John Bender's football field from the Breakfast Club is only a few miles away.
It's turf now.
April 10th, 2024 at 10:49 PM ^
What does Pat Fitzgerald have to say about this?????
Northwestern football is irrelevant in the new football landscape.
April 10th, 2024 at 10:52 PM ^
They plan to sell 1 ticket per game for $5M.
You only need to hook one whale!
April 10th, 2024 at 10:54 PM ^
As someone who went to Northwestern, I can confirm that Northwestern gives zero shit about athletics. Nobody, literally nobody talked about the game on Monday or ever with me and most people around me knew I was a die hard football fan of Michigan. Truly amazing experience I had there when it came to athletics.
April 10th, 2024 at 11:00 PM ^
Why not Soldier Field?...
Likely because there is some doubt what is happening to Soldier Field in the coming years.
In the next 2 years?
My guess is that:
- Northwestern doesn't want to pay for that.
- Northwestern probably couldn't convince its own fans to go down there for that game. They have a hard enough time convincing their own fans to attend games right in Evanston.
- While opposing fanbases like Michigan, OSU, Nebraska or PSU would pack Soldier Field for games, I don't know how much of that money Northwestern would see. A very sizable portion of the proceeds, if not a majority, might go to Soldier Field. If Northwestern can at least keep the game on its own turf, they can have all the ticket proceeds come directly to them as opposed to having to share it with someone else, if not give it all away entirely.
April 10th, 2024 at 11:08 PM ^
FWIW - this will only be some NU home games, not ALL of them.
I'd be very surprised if they don't play the Michigan game at a larger stadium (like Wrigley or Solider Field). $$$ talks.
April 10th, 2024 at 11:26 PM ^
Tom Izzo thinks we should play on an aircraft carrier in the middle of Lake Michigan !
For the record, playing a football game on an aircraft carrier in the middle of Lake Michigan would be incredibly cool and also the most American thing ever done. Can you imagine the blimp shots of that?
April 11th, 2024 at 10:05 AM ^
Too bad the two aircraft carriers deployed on the Great Lakes were already scrapped. One was the USS Wolverine. One of two PADDLE WHEEL aircraft carriers used in WW2
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Wolverine_(IX-64)
April 10th, 2024 at 11:35 PM ^
Certainly a selling point to recruits !
April 10th, 2024 at 11:43 PM ^
Crazy that a power 5 football team can play in a 10k seat stadium. Why didn't they think about where they were going to play before they renovated Ryan Field.
April 11th, 2024 at 12:34 AM ^
Exactly. And, the most recent USNWR ranking has Northwestern as the highest ranked B1G school academically.
“Common Sense” does not appear to be very common in Evanston.
You may not be thrilled with the results of the planning, but I'd be comfortable betting that some planning (for alternative sites) was done.
I have very good friends that are both alumni and supporters of Northwestern. Did they discuss alternate locations to play the ‘24 and ‘25 seasons? I’m sure they discussed it.
Did they reach an agreement and commitment from another venue(s) to host the game? It doesn’t appear they did. That lack of agreement / commitment is difficult to understand.
There are options.. as others have noted, the two easiest choices are Wrigley and Soldier Field. They could also head down near the University of Chicago and request using the Maroons field - or Gately Stadium with a capacity of 8K.
Heck, if they can give away Grant Park for most of the summer for a NASCAR Street Race - why don’t they just set up the 16 inch softball fields on the south part of Grant Park for a football game - and offer free admission - bring your lawn chairs or blankets.
Stagg Field at UChicago is a low-range high school stadium. Like, it's a field with a track and one set of very small bleachers.
As for Gately, getting North Shore alums to go to 103rd and Cottage Grove would be great people-watching at least.
While I agree that Stagg Field probably has a capacity similar to Loyola Academy - and, that Gately would be interesting people watching - the fact they didn’t have defined and committed options prior to the reconstruction surprises me greatly.
I’ll head to Evanston regularly when Michigan plays - if it’s Field Hockey, soccer, or lacrosse - I’ll support the Maize & Blue.
Different people have different priorities.
April 11th, 2024 at 10:40 AM ^
I think the priority here was 'don't pay what Wrigley and Soldier fields were asking to put 20,000 fans when they play Indiana'. Smart.
I suspect they will work something out for the Big games if it makes sense financially.
There used to be a minimum for average attendance in order to maintain FBS status, though it was seemingly never enforced, but apparently they got rid of that last year (likely because it was never enforced)...
April 10th, 2024 at 11:50 PM ^
It's going to be a tough ticket...but I'm in.
No piped in music. Rose Bowl style. Can't wait.
April 10th, 2024 at 11:55 PM ^
This plan was popular amongst Northwestern fans because of its proximity to campus, allowing Northwestern to maintain a home-field advantage.
[Insert Nicholas Cage laughing gif]
April 11th, 2024 at 12:55 AM ^
Bring your own lawn chairs ….
Pretend it's Mostly Mozart and bring a blanket, a bottle of Pinot, an assortment of the finest cheeses and crackers, maybe some take-out pheasant under glass from your favorite pheasant under glass spot. They'd probably get a better crowd for Mostly Mozart in Evanston.
"... bring a blanket, a bottle of Pinot, an assortment of the finest cheeses and crackers, maybe some take-out pheasant under glass from your favorite pheasant under glass spot."
This is what angry Sparty fans tell themselves about Michigan fans.
And here we have the solution: Put up a football field at Ravinia.
Can we move the Ravinia crowd to 103rd at Cottage Grove?
April 11th, 2024 at 10:36 AM ^
They could never compete with Ravinia. Book end the games with kids’ rec league soccer and you might get people to stick around to watch the Cats.
Those 20,000 bleacher seats they have at Ryan would seem to be easily relocatable.
Didn't they already sell those off?
Should just save the money and play there permanently