Evanston approves Northwestern's new $800M stadium

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Green Bay and Buffalo are legacy and would never be added in modern times. :rolleyes:

NO is old money. But probably falls into the same.

Lville I suggested purely from geographical point of being smack dab between Indy and Nash. Also have some money there.

Jacksonville has what? What a dumb place for a new major pro team.


If Kronke couldn’t blackball the Chargers from moving in, then Bears can’t either for exact same reason. Three owners is a different situation, but fair enough I didn’t realize Lville was that small. (Is it really that much smaller than Indy??)

This country has three legit mega cities, and two of them have two teams in the same stadium. No need to dishonestly pretend it’s some alien concept.

Chicago Jags. Rolls off the tongue. Would be at least as successful as LA Chargers and NY Jets :LOL:
 

A_Slab_of_Bacon said:
I don’t know if the locals would go for that, but it’s not a bad idea.

The thing is MLS teams and fans seem to demand a soccer specific stadiums, they really hate the idea of sharing with the more popular sports it seems.

Also, football and soccer will eat a field alive.
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MLS is far more popular than northwestern football
 



The only explanation...

The new Big Ten.

Chicago money will move in to boost the team that generates a big show and big revenue flows in America's third largest city.

Chicago the Oregon of the Midwest?
 


MplsGopher said:
Jacksonville FL having an NFL team is like Tulsa having an NFL team. Makes zero sense.

Louisville would be a great geographic fit for that division, but would be furiously blackballed by Colts, Bengals, and Titans.
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I believe Jags are headed for London, been slowly in the works.
 

SHGopher said:
The only explanation...

The new Big Ten.

Chicago money will move in to boost the team that generates a big show and big revenue flows in America's third largest city.

Chicago the Oregon of the Midwest?
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This new stadium looks cool, like a destination stadium. Lots of features planned in.

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wgntv.com

See Northwestern’s big plans for a new football stadium

After receiving a $480 million gift from Pat and Shirley Ryan in 2021, Northwestern released plans for a new Ryan Field this week that would bring a state-of-the-art football Stadium to Evanston.
wgntv.com wgntv.com


Northwestern athletic director Dr. Derrick Gragg in a statement released by the school. “We are all grateful to the Ryan Family for their unwavering commitment to Northwestern University and our academic and athletics programs.


“I have no doubt that the privately funded stadium will be a game-changer for our football program, athletics department and the community, and will be in line with our other excellent facilities including Welsh-Ryan Arena and Ryan Fieldhouse.”
 


Very pedestrian. At least they’re not resorting to gambling revenues.



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goldengophers said:
They just opened a $120M practice facility...
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OK, thanks. Sounds like it's settled-in as regular games in London rather than ramping up to move.


www.sportingnews.com

Jaguars schedule 2023: Why Jacksonville is playing in London two weeks in a row | Sporting News

The Jaguars just played in London in Week 5, but are back again in Week 6. The Sporting News explains why Jacksonville is playing back-to-back weeks in the UK.
www.sportingnews.com www.sportingnews.com

No NFL team has played over in London as often as the Jaguars have. This second matchup in 2023 marks the 11th time that Jacksonville will participate in a game in the UK. Jacksonville's owner, Shad Khan, has ties to the country.

"To see the Jacksonville Jaguars extend their stay in the UK and play two regular season games here this year is indicative of the Jags' commitment to continuing to grow their fanbase here long-term," NFL UK general manager Henry Hodgson said this offseason.
 

That's a lot to spend for a program that likely won't sniff a CFP spot and it will sit idle a goodly part of the time. What's the projected seating capacity?
 

BAJJERFAN said:
That's a lot to spend for a program that likely won't sniff a CFP spot and it will sit idle a goodly part of the time. What's the projected seating capacity?
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35k

Smaller than the bank, at twice the price.
 




highwayman said:
The Bears already play in the smallest stadium in the NFL. Double down on that?

They are building a 75,000 capacity stadium in Arlington Heights and waving goodbye to downtown and the "east side" and the ridiculous Chicago administration.
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Chicago screwed the pooch losing the Bears. The city really needed to work something out with the Bears for an indoor or retractable-roof stadium in the Roosevelt/Clark TIF. A modern NFL stadium near the loop would have made Chicago a major events destination again. At this point, you’d never know Chicago is a Top 3 city.
 

Catechol said:
They may be able to make money from smaller outside sporting events like tournaments, renting out the club space for private and university events, etc.
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Pop Warner football! 💁‍♂️
 

MplsGopher said:
Jacksonville has what? What a dumb place for a new major pro team.
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When the NFL was considering expansion in the late 80’s migration to the “Sunbelt” was all the rage in the demographic projections universe. Classic NFL cities like Cleveland, Detroit and Pittsburgh were shrinking, and people in those places were moving to the South.

Charlotte and Jacksonville were both small, but projected to become major metro areas. In the last 30 years, Charlotte became one. Jacksonville mostly has not become one (yet). It is crazy to see how different two cities have become that were very nearly identical in 1985.
 

Fair enough. On the other hand, Charlottle is the corporate/financial center of the whole state of NC (and actually a pretty important one for the country). Jacksonville, again … is what? A 4th tier metro in Florida?

Anyway, thanks for the historical perspective!
 

Goldmember said:
Chicago screwed the pooch losing the Bears. The city really needed to work something out with the Bears for an indoor or retractable-roof stadium in the Roosevelt/Clark TIF. A modern NFL stadium near the loop would have made Chicago a major events destination again. At this point, you’d never know Chicago is a Top 3 city.
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The Bears haven’t made an official agreement to move anywhere yet, and are apparently still in talks with the city. Whether that’s leverage to get Hoffman Estates to move off their spot on the tax rate, or leverage to get Chicago to come up with a better plan, who knows. My guess is they’d prefer to stay in the city closer to their fan base with the right deal for a new stadium, but the appeal of building out the racetrack site for year round revenue is making them rethink that.
 

Goldmember said:
And that’s waaaaaay too small.

FCS team should have to play in stadiums with capacity of 43,000+.
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What percentage of games do we have well over 35,000 butts in the seats? For Northwestern fan base I’d call that realistic.
 

MplsGopher said:
Fair enough. On the other hand, Charlottle is the corporate/financial center of the whole state of NC (and actually a pretty important one for the country). Jacksonville, again … is what? A 4th tier metro in Florida?

Anyway, thanks for the historical perspective!
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Jax is the largest city in Florida for what it's worth.
They got the team apparently because Houston at the time couldn't get their shit together.

I don't think the team is going to leave. London has always been talked about in part because the Khan family also owns Fulham FC, but I think their are plans to remodel the stadium again in Jax, and I don't know how serious the NFL is about having actual teams in Europe.

Realistically, Jax doesn't make that much sense, given its proximity to Atlanta, Tampa and Miami, but compared to Louisville, it's a better location.
 

theTurning said:
Odd they’re not taking the opportunity to move it on campus. All their facilities are right on the water and with all that money you’d think they could pull it off.
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No more room on their lakefront, the indoor football practice facility is on the lakefront and it’s amazing.
 

Northwestern has no place to play next year, so they're actually considering building a temporary field along the lakefront. Their administration's management of this has been comically bad. I mean, it's not like Ryan Field was unexpectedly leveled by a tornado. They've been campaigning for this new stadium for 2+ years, and still don't have a plan for where to play their home games in 2024, even with more than half of the old stadium now demolished.

 

WindyCityGopher said:
Northwestern has no place to play next year, so they're actually considering building a temporary field along the lakefront. Their administration's management of this has been comically bad. I mean, it's not like Ryan Field was unexpectedly leveled by a tornado. They've been campaigning for this new stadium for 2+ years, and still don't have a plan for where to play their home games in 2024, even with more than half of the old stadium now demolished.

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This is the same administration, who hid under their desks during the investigation that made no comments about anything until they abruptly changed their mind several times and still didn’t say anything…..
 

A_Slab_of_Bacon said:
This is the same administration, who hid under their desks during the investigation that made no comments about anything until they abruptly changed their mind several times and still didn’t say anything…..
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For both football AND baseball! They stuck their heads in the sand for both until the yelling got too loud and they were forced to do something, then made panic moves. Truly incredible their AD still has a job.
 

WindyCityGopher said:
For both football AND baseball! They stuck their heads in the sand for both until the yelling got too loud and they were forced to do something, then made panic moves. Truly incredible their AD still has a job.
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The AD role generally seems to be going the way of NFL GM where you got folks doing there jobs and ... a lot of purely empty suits.
 



Footprint looks a little tight to be able to use their practice field with enough seating.

They have 6 home games in 2024. Between Soldier Field, Lambeau Field, South Bend, Northern Illinois, etc. they should be able to get the games covered.

Miami Ohio
Duke
Indiana
Wisconsin
tOSU
Illinois

Looks like a lot a negotiating.
 

MaxyJR1 said:
Footprint looks a little tight to be able to use their practice field with enough seating.

They have 6 home games in 2024. Between Soldier Field, Lambeau Field, South Bend, Northern Illinois, etc. they should be able to get the games covered.

Miami Ohio
Duke
Indiana
Wisconsin
tOSU
Illinois

Looks like a lot a negotiating.
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Further complicating things is the fact that the NFL schedule hasn't been finalized yet, so they're likely having to work with the Bears and the NFL to figure out whether they can work Northwestern's already scheduled dates into schedule planning to align when the Bears will be on the road or on a bye. And the Cubs won't let them play at Wrigley until November when baseball season is guaranteed to be over. There are reports they'll play one game at Lambeau, but they'll have to go through the same negotiations with the Packers that they'd have to do with the Bears. In short, a complete and total clusterfuck of their own making, something Northwestern has become pretty adept at recently.
 

WindyCityGopher said:
Further complicating things is the fact that the NFL schedule hasn't been finalized yet, so they're likely having to work with the Bears and the NFL to figure out whether they can work Northwestern's already scheduled dates into schedule planning to align when the Bears will be on the road or on a bye. And the Cubs won't let them play at Wrigley until November when baseball season is guaranteed to be over. There are reports they'll play one game at Lambeau, but they'll have to go through the same negotiations with the Packers that they'd have to do with the Bears. In short, a complete and total clusterfuck of their own making, something Northwestern has become pretty adept at recently.
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What about SeatGeek in Bridgeview? Seems like a good fit capacity wise, and they surely have the dates open after the Fire left...
 

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