Official: Northwestern will play football at their soccer stadium next 2 years
- Thread starter ScarletDave
- Start date
Steelers and Pitt play on natural grass field and this is a long term deal. Temple and Eagles play on natural turf and that is a long term deal.
It’s not like this was surprise that Northwestern had to find an alternate site for games. They just didn’t.
Low Rent and access to Club Seats (better than sitting on benches).
Rutgers home attendance was 50,756 (#40) and Pitt home attendance was 54,710 (#34) Phil Steele Mag 2023.
Rutgers student body 90,000 and Pitt student body 35,000.
To each his own and we can agree to disagree.
HAIL TO PITT!!!!
Unbelievably, Northwestern knocked down their home football stadium (Ryan Field) before finding a temporary home for the next 2 seasons while their new stadium is being built on the same plot. After timing issues with other evens at Soldier Field, Wrigley, and nearby high schools, they made the unthinkable decision to play all home games at their soccer stadium. They will add temporary stands in the endzone, but the capcity will surely be less than 10,000 … incredible for a Big Ten football program.
Northwestern football ‘staying home’ with temporary enhancements to the Lanny and Sharon Martin facility on lakefront
Northwestern football will play a majority of its games this season at the Lanny and Sharon Martin athletics facility near Lake Michigan on the University’s Evanston campus, keeping the team close to home as it seeks to build on its bowl-winning 2023 season.news.northwestern.edu
The pictures of the new stadium and facility look incredible. Two years of this crazy set up and then a move back to what should be an awesome situation. I think I would be OK with this as a fan.
90k where did you pull that number from Rutgers New Brunswick is half that size. Less than 45k. Highest number I have seen is 68k including Newark and Camden. That would be like Pitt including the Johnstown campus in their student population numbers.
Edit to include true numbers:
Rutgers, By the Numbers
Browse facts and figures about Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey.
What happened to you? You used to be a more measured poster. But you have been throwing shade with your last couple of posts.
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You would be okay with playing home games at Yurcak field for 2 years? There would be a board meltdown and we would be run out of town by the national media and fans from every other conference and school.
If we would end up with a big time stadium like the Horseshoe or the Big House, yup, I'd be OK with 12-14 games at Yurcak.
In what world is spending $800 million on a new stadium and $270 million on a fieldhouse and locker room for football de-emphazing football?
The new stadium will have a capacity of 35k
Fortunately, it's not a shitty erector set that looks like it was put together by a blind midget like that dump in Happy Valley, but no team worth their salt who hopes to compete for championships would build a stadium that small, let alone play two seasons on a 15k capacity practice field
MLS. Chicago Fire soccer club plays on Saturdays.
How convenient that you ignored this year's attendance which was 48,122 or 2021 45,365 or 2019 43,372 or 2018 41,696. Those seasons were more typical and not the best season Pitt had in 20+ years. Also where in the world are you getting 90k student. Enrollment is only 43,859 at New Brunswick campus.
What does stadium capacity have to do with winning championships? Why build seats for the sake of building seats? How many additional games did the last SHI stadium expansion win? Should they spend an additional $200 million to have 20,000 more seats empty each game at a time when in person viewing is on a major decline? If capacity meant anything then Ohio State, Michigan and Penn State would have combined for more than 2 national championship in the las 20+ years. Deemphasizing would have been minor lip stick on the pig renovations.
One thing we can agree on is beaver stadium is a complete dump and is in major need of renovations. That is why they are starting a major renovation there this summer.
Again I repeat, sans a big Phil Knight type donor who's all in on FB, NW has no chance of winning anything of substance, ever, in any of our lifetimes
Nice catch. At least two 2024 Northwestern football home game dates conflict with Chicago Fire home games.
Come on don't bring facts into this. The Fire play at soldier field 4 of NW 7 home games. Both major leagues teams are playing in September and I am sure MLB requires teams to leave open playoff dates so realistically they are only available for 2 games in November.
One thing from the press release is that majority of the games will be on campus but not all. If you look at home games most will fit fine in a small stadium. I can see games like Ohio State or Michigan being moved to bigger venues
Here's an explanation why, but I feel Northwestern feels with it's low attendance the cost of renting a stadium would be more than the paying customers would bring in .Northwestern should be able get 20,000 capacity in its temporary stadium. A temp stadium is under construction on Long Island that is taking just a few months to build and will seat 34,000 fans.
Nassau County International Cricket Stadium - Wikipedia
en.m.wikipedia.org
Northwestern home games drew crowds of around 20,000 last season. Makes sense to keep games on campus rather than play at off campus stadiums miles away where few would attend.
So keeping it in house to save the money while improving one of it's facilities that will be the site played in
Northwestern football ‘staying home’ with temporary enhancements to the Lanny and Sharon Martin facility on lakefront - Northwestern Now
>With views of Lake Michigan, North Campus and the Chicago skyline, the temporary structure Northwestern will build at the Martin athletics facility will provide a stunning backdrop for the 2024 and 2025 seasons,<
https://news.northwestern.edu/stori...-on-lakefront-during-ryan-field-construction/
Neither of them have MLS soccer teams using the stadium on Saturday which conflicts with 4 of the 7 home games. The Steelers had no choice as it was part of the funding process and the Eagles have really fought hard to kick Temple out.
Heinz/Acrisure’s grass is a mess.
Lincoln has a hybrid grass/turf field.
I know I'm in the minority, but I think Beaver Stadium is just fine for a college program, even an elite one...
How much of the stadium have you been in? My seats are in the north upper deck and at least one game 2 of the 4 bathrooms were closed due to plumbing issues. So they placed port johns in the corridors. The bathroom closest to my seats is unusable in rain games because of flooding. Windows have fallen out of the press box during the game like two years ago. Visiting team locker room has no AC and is so small teams dress behind tarps in a makeshift area. None of the plumbing is not winterized so a cold snap could force them to move a playoff game. High schools stadiums have better bathrooms and concession stands. The egress is so bad I pray they never have evacuate quickly. It a Frankenstein built monstrosity that has no cohesive flow in the concourses.
Quick, somebody need to tell NW they don’t have a shot at a natty. I mean until this point it really seems like that’s how They were positioning themselves with prior decision making.
Agreed it was less to do about Soldier field and more to do with playing games on site in a soccer stadium. It’s not like Northwestern was forced to make this upgrade without having proper contingencies in place. They were not forced to only have soldier field as an option.
Think about the risk they are forcing upon other teams to play at a glorified practice facility. Will there be adequate medical facilities and access on site? Will there be adequate locker room space to accomodate visiting teams (soccer locker room space are not built out for 100 plus people)? Will there be enough space for support staff and equipment? Will the turf be able to hold up to multiple teams playing on the surfaces? (Both Northwestern soccer teams utilize this facility). I don’t see this ending well.
It's been a very long time since I was in the stadium, admittedly. Plus, I was a dumb kid (I'm now a dumb adult). I didn't know any of that stuff.
I was mostly trying to say that for me, it's okay if it has an idiosyncratic "erector set" look. I don't see the problem with that...
ETA: Sorry Jaydog, you probably were referring to all the issues that PSUNut has pointed out. I should talk less...
No you really can’t. (My error I thought someone mentioned earlier that the soccer pitch was natural grass) And you posted earlier how horrible the existing turf was.
I know Ryan field house is close by. But will that facility be adequate for 2 football teams accessing the space at the same time? Support staff? It’s not like they have a vacant locker room that is not being utilized that can accommodate 150+ people.
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Do you realize most Big Ten facilities are lacking that. Purdue, Northwestern and Penn State visiting locker rooms don't even have air conditioning let alone medical facilities. Northwestern old visiting locker room didn't even have heat and you are worried about this field. At Beaver Stadium teams dress behind tarps because the visiting locker room is so small had has done so since 91 and the BIG Ten has done nothing. Many B1G stadium don't have medical facilities in locker rooms. Northwestern has a brand new entire state of the art training center 100 yards from the field. A hospital with a level 1 trauma center is a mile from the stadium. The field is artificial turf so it not an issue. Ryan Fieldhouse is 25 feet away with entire football field of room that could be used as temp locker room.
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The field turf was addressed in an earlier post. I misinterpreted someone’s response as both soccer teams playing on site and the turf being awful to mean natural grass. But there is a Big difference between lack of air conditioning and lack of space versus no space. Most of the field sports are based out of Ryan Field house. Many will be in season. Those facilities will not be available. And locker rooms built out to handle a team of 20-25 is very different than for a team of 100. We’ll see if they offer up the field for locker room but I’m thinking that won’t happen. And I doubt many teams would like their locker room and pre game/halftime planning and routine open to the masses. Very difficult to secure a giant space like that. As I said earlier I don’t think this ends well. Just because PSU and some others choose not to accommodate visiting teams doesn’t mean that it should be accepted and rewarded. Which is what is happening with allowing Northwestern to operate out of high school facilities the next 2 years.
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There are also I believe 2 maybe 3 brand new turf fields adjacent to soccer field. They were turning them last fall
Expect 2k empty seatsUnbelievably, Northwestern knocked down their home football stadium (Ryan Field) before finding a temporary home for the next 2 seasons while their new stadium is being built on the same plot. After timing issues with other evens at Soldier Field, Wrigley, and nearby high schools, they made the unthinkable decision to play all home games at their soccer stadium. They will add temporary stands in the endzone, but the capcity will surely be less than 10,000 … incredible for a Big Ten football program.
Northwestern football ‘staying home’ with temporary enhancements to the Lanny and Sharon Martin facility on lakefront
Northwestern football will play a majority of its games this season at the Lanny and Sharon Martin athletics facility near Lake Michigan on the University’s Evanston campus, keeping the team close to home as it seeks to build on its bowl-winning 2023 season.
-vic
Most of you don’t travel anyway. Why do you care where Northwestern plays its games? Let em play wherever they want to. They looked at alternatives, felt it wasn’t worth it, so they’re sucking it up for two years.
We have as much right to rag on a school as they did sh*tting on Rutgers. Like someone posted earlier, If Rutgers tried this stunt, they'd be calling for our expulsion and calling our entrance a mistake. Why should Northwestern get a pass?
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My issue is less to do with visiting fans having a seat in the stadium and more to do with player safety and massive competitive advantage.
Exactly. The token Ivy League wannabe university in the B1G isn't getting away with this without derision in my eyes.
90k where did you pull that number from Rutgers New Brunswick is half that size. Less than 45k. Highest number I have seen is 68k including Newark and Camden. That would be like Pitt including the Johnstown campus in their student population numbers.
Edit to include true numbers:
Rutgers, By the Numbers
Browse facts and figures about Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey.www.rutgers.edu
What happened to you? You used to be a more measured poster. But you have been throwing shade with your last couple of posts.
The OP was a discussion on Northwestern which I commented on.
Another poster turned it into a post referring to Pitt which I commented on and how student body can have a factor in football attendance.
To be more exact on student body of our respective schools.
As of the Fall of 2023 Pitt has a Total Student Body (Including Branch Campuses) of 33,731 students).
Rutgers Total Student Body (Including Branch Campuses) of 68,942 students.
Rutgers is twice as larger as Pitt when comparing students attending.
The number of students a university has increases the potential of greater attendance for home football games.
You have the number of students on site at the campus in addition to the number of Alums (graduates) who decide to attend home football games. It is a numbers game. Penn State has a student body of about 100,000 students (3 times larger than Pitt).
My point was Pitt's football home attendance is not unusual when compared compared to other schools when considering total students on campus and total number of alums.
All good.
HAIL TO PITT!!!!
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