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Northwestern football normally plays at Ryan Field, a stadium tucked into a mostly residential neighborhood in Evanston. But Ryan Field is getting blown up to make way for a new Ryan Field. Which means Northwestern can’t play football there right now.

Instead, the Wildcats will play five games this season at the temporarily-remodeled Northwestern Medicine Field at Martin Stadium, home of the school’s soccer and lacrosse programs. The new facility is right in the heart of campus, and really right on the shores of Lake Michigan.

It’s also smaller than Ryan Field. A lot smaller. Total capacity of the facility will be around 15,000, compared to the ~47,000ish that could fit into the old stadium. It’s also not completely finished yet.

I visited the facility on Monday afternoon, to take pictures and talk to Northwestern staffers to understand what this place is, why the school is doing this, and what the future holds for college football on the North Shore.

Okay, why on earth is Northwestern doing this? Surely they could have played their games at Soldier Field or any number of other stadiums around Chicago, right?

Good question! After talking to a few folks at Northwestern, I heard several answers.

For one, there’s the matter of construction timing. It isn’t easy for schools to make meaningful stadium contingency plans if they don’t really know that they need to find a new home. Northwestern’s ability to actually renovate Ryan Field was politically contentious, and it was far from a sure thing that the Evanston City Council would approve it. Once that approval was granted, (by a single vote) the school had to work quickly, lest opponents of the stadium re-mobilize to defeat it. So the planning timetable couldn’t be as smooth as it might be for other schools.

The other stadiums in the city also had drawbacks. The school had to wait for the NFL to finalize their schedule before everybody could see if Soldier Field would even have any availability, and had to work around the Chicago Fire’s schedule, making it impractical to host multiple games. Other stadiums, like SeatGeek (home of the Chicago Red Stars) or Guaranteed Rate Field (home of the Chicago White Sox, an alleged professional baseball team), are far away from Northwestern’s core fanbase on the far North side of Chicagoland.

Looking at the financials, schedule, where Northwestern’s fans will actually travel and university goals, the school decided that the best option was to play on campus for most of the schedule. The Wildcats will play two opponents, Ohio State and Illinois, at Wrigley Field.

Wow, moving to a tiny stadium right on top of the lake must mean that Northwestern is gonna lose a ton of gameday revenue, right?

Turns out…this isn’t actually true!

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