Unveiling of college football’s most expensive stadium ever hit by major setback as issue revealed
Northwestern will begin the 2026 season at a temporary lakefront stadium.
It was hoped that New Ryan Field would be ready when the Wildcats returned to the field, but Pat Ryan Jr. has confirmed the timeline has changed.
The CEO of Ryan Sports Development told Front Office Sports that the 35,000-seat stadium had already been revised before they broke ground after demolition delays.
“When we originally had the plan, we hoped to have the stadium done for the first week of the season,” he said Tuesday. “We had an extended political process to get approvals, and so by the time we got approvals, the original demolition date, December 6, [2023], was already past.
“And so when we started demolition on February 14, [2024], the delivery date, the target delivery date, was mid-September [2026].”
An October 2 clash with Penn State — the Wildcats’ first home Big Ten showdown — is now being targeted.
South Dakota State and Colorado will both be hosted at the temporary Martin Stadium that has been in operation for the past two seasons.
Northwestern bosses are aiming to play five home games at Ryan Field in 2026.
“From the moment this project broke ground, mid-September was always the goal,” Ryan added. “There was a hope we could deliver it early, but with the weather we’ve had, delivering it early has just not been an option.
“Everybody is working towards that date [October 2]. The team is confident they can hit that date. We can’t prognosticate the weather; we’re doing our best.”
The 2,000-capacity student section called the Purple Wall has taken shape, as has the stadium’s canopy. It uses the same architectural innovation as the $2 billion Intuit Dome, with one area starting just 90 feet away from the field.
Chicago’s Big Ten team had little to shout about last season, as the Wildcats posted a 4-8 record that saw them finish in the bottom three of the Big Ten standings.
The Wildcats have struggled to find on-field success as of late, winning 16 games in total over the last four seasons, and if you take out 2023’s 8-5 record, that leaves just 8 wins in three seasons.
However, Northwestern will be trying to set college football‘s standard for the modern-day stadium.
The Wildcats first moved in to Ryan Field nearly a century ago in 1927, but their iconic home was demolished in early 2024 to make way for a state-of-the-art new stadium.
Set to cost a staggering $862 million, the upgraded site in Evanston, Illinois, will create a world-class home for Northwestern University Athletics.
The school hopes that when it’s complete, the new stadium will also offer a best-in-the-nation football experience for fans, student-athletes and the local community.
Proposals, first shared three years ago, confirmed that the new Ryan Field will feature significantly smaller crowds — with the arena designed for a maximum capacity of 35,000.
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That would mean cutting 12,000 seats from what was already the smallest stadium in the Big Ten, but in doing so, the new venue will be able to offer a much improved fan experience.
A state-of-the-art canopy is designed to focus noise and light on the field, while the building as a whole will offer ‘the best sight lines’ in college football.
The new Ryan Field will also make use of cutting-edge technology and scoreboards, and offer upgraded concessions featuring food from local restaurants.
Northwestern has also pledged that the stadium will be funded entirely with private dollars, and will require no taxpayer financing thanks to a ‘generous gift’ from the Ryan Family.
Billionaire Pat Ryan is a member and former chairman of the board of trustees at Northwestern, and Ryan Field is already named after him.
The insurance businessman also owns a large minority interest in the Chicago Bears, who have similarly been linked with a new stadium.
“Our worst seat in this stadium is 100 feet closer to the field than the most expensive seat at the Big House,” Ryan said last year, referring to 107,000-seater Michigan Stadium.
“You’re building things up and cantilevering them over instead of going out. It’s structurally much more challenging from an engineering perspective, but you’ve got to create better-than-TV sightlines.”
While the Ryan family donated $480 million to the funding of the new stadium in 2021, in the year since the groundbreaking, the budget is now at $862 million, which is $6 million more than the original allocation for the stadium.
The cost is still fully funded by private backers, but by the time the new Ryan Field is completed, it is expected to be the most expensive college stadium in the country.
A budget of $862m would dwarf that of Texas A&M’s Kyle Field ($650.4m), Notre Dame Stadium ($527.4m) and the University of California, Berkeley’s California Memorial Stadium ($466.2m) — the current top three according to Front Office Sports.
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