Is Northwestern going to rename Ryan Field to Ryan Stadium when it gets renovated?
- Thread starter zeek55
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I'm not really a fan of the exterior, kind of blah. I'll bet it's nice once you get a seat, though. The roof over the seats would be terrific. That said, I've made my position clear. I love our old dump.
The Bears should have built something along the river south of the Loop. Imagine taking a water taxi booze cruise from Navy Pier to the game on a sunny fall afternoon.
Yeah, given how thorough Phillips and company were with the design process for Ryan Fieldhouse as well as the Welsh-Ryan renovation; I assume they'll take a full look at what TCU, Baylor, and Stanford did with their renovations and incorporate aspects of their work into our design process based on what really improved the experience at their games the most.
They'll probably go and look at larger stadium renovations as well, but the most relevant for us are Baylor and TCU for sure.
Baylor spent $266 million on their a few years ago. For us, that would probably cost around $325-340 million.
The Ryans would probably put up around $75 million as the anchor donor; Ryan's mentioned the stadium work coming up next in his last interview with Teddy, so I assume the Ryans will participate.
Like I said earlier, it's not my money, but I have a really hard time believing that they are going to spend $300,000,000 for a team with 25,000 fans. We are lucky we have a team at all with our fan base and I don't think a new stadium is going to dramatically change anything. I wouldn't build anything until we can consistently put 35,000 of our own fans in the seats. The gameday experience generally sucks because of our fans not because of the stadium.
I wouldn't be that pessimistic about our fanbase.
Our fanbase is right around 30-33k atm; our non-conference games against Nevada and Bowling Green had a bit over 33k in tickets sold, and that's typically what we've had for a few years.
It'll be a lot easier to draw 40k+ crowds of mostly purple with both winning and a massive stadium renovation. The winning is always going to be the most important factor, but if you combine that with a top-flight stadium, it'll make it easier to get our fans that come to one or two games a year to come to more and commit to season tickets.
Realistically, if we have a few years where we challenge for the division with 10+ win seasons and NY6 bowls, that's really when you'd be able to draw 40k+ purple-ish crowds, and you want to have a top-flight stadium experience ready for them to commit to coming more often.
That's part of why it's important to do a massive stadium renovation before the up-tick of winning. Stanford is a good example of that, they did their demo/rebuild of Stanford Stadium when they were posting 1-5 win seasons and drawing fairly pedestrian crowds outside of their ND/Cal games. They missed bowls for the half-decade prior to their stadium rebuild and for another 2 years after...
Once Harbaugh came, they were able to take advantage of that by combining the winning with a better stadium experience.
Now's the perfect time to embark upon a stadium build with an expected up-tick in recruiting and hopefully on-field results to continue to show as the past 3 years have.
Uh ohs. Blew it all on Taj Fitz...
Northwestern to defer projects, filling faculty positions to make up for projected deficit
https://dailynorthwestern.com/2018/...ing-faculty-positions-make-projected-deficit/
Northwestern to defer projects, filling faculty positions to make up for projected deficit
https://dailynorthwestern.com/2018/...ing-faculty-positions-make-projected-deficit/
TOTALLY disagree. Look at the shadow lines in in not so late afternoon, when most of the game will be played. And why is "Lake Michigan" pea green. Yuk. They're not doing a lot of things right.
As I live far away and don't attend games, I don't have a fierce opinion about the repair/replacement of Dyche Stadium/Ryan Field. But, I hope any new design retains an aspect of the towers. The towers were the one thing I remembered when I first saw Dyche in 1972 (back then there were NU helmets painted on the facade of the towers).
They haven't announced anything have they? Why would they redo Ryan, i.e., what's wrong with it? It only needs to hold about 40,000. Anything more will just be silly except Willycat may like more seats.
But, certain key people say they are going to charge ridiculous yearly PSL's and few will buy the seats to see Eastern Michigan and Illinois state. But they are going outside of Ryan for this one by leasing the naming rights to Purina. Certain key people have said that they are going to name the stadium "The Litter Box"
I'd imagine that any rebuild/renovation would keep the original ideas and probably expand upon them; i.e. build out the original design for 4 towers on the corners and keep the facade but have steeper stands with seats in possibly 3 tiers of around 43-45k seats.
Uh, Turk, as for Ill. State, BIG teams aren't supposed to schedule FCS teams any more (but the Fighting Illini didn't get the memo. See their 2018 schedule). And Eastern did win at Rutgers last year. As for PSLs, I'll believe that when I see it. Basketball is very different with limited seating.
They will get around the demand for FB tickets by reducing the seating to 20,000 or less.
And with a better stadium, the fans will come! I think we are too hard core on this board. People forget that a huge number of NU fans are like "oh no honeyyyyy.....it's so chilly today.......can't we just watch the game at Bufflo Wild WIngs.....". Build something nice, good concessions, bathrooms, etc, more will come.
I agree the Baylor Stadium is great. I am for the TCU stadium though because it fits the Ryan Field footprint. I am pretty sure Baylor is larger. We would have trouble getting it approved methinks. But it's definitely a superb stadium.
I'm sure we will get good architects who will visit all of these places and other new stadiums like Orlando (Central Florida), Akron, FAU and FIU, etc.
Hope they don't look to Akron, CFU, FAU, and FIU? Maybe look to Minnesota and Indiana.
The athletic department is on a separate budget, and that budget will be getting a $20m per year boost from the new TV deal payouts starting this year.
Money is not a problem, and the major donors all know that the stadium is next on the list after the fieldhouse, arena, and basketball facility.
I would guess that fundraising for the stadium rebuild/renovation would begin by 2020 at the latest with a target date for building it around 2022-2024 depending on how everything goes.
No I was hoping they WOULD look at what those schools did (and Minnesota too - forgot about them).
A bridge from Central Street lots over to lake and the stadium would be the way to go. Although they might need to add a "people mover" for us old folks.
