Don’t Turn Away!

The most interesting question in all of this is what they’ll aim for capacity to be. I’d imagine 50k is the target, since you’d have Michigan, Nebraska, and Ohio State guaranteed sellouts on the schedule at least once a year and then the potential that we’re witnessing this season. The fact that we’re doing this right with a full master plan means we’re looking at essentially a full rebuild (like Minnesota) or a major renovation bordering on a full rebuild (like Stanford).

Obviously, we don’t want to get ahead of ourselves since this kind of thing has a target window of like 3-5 years in the future at least. But still, it’s awesome to hear that we’re finally going to join the rest of the schools with a pimped out home.

They will not have OSU guaranteed sellouts every year since their in different divisions. Might you be thinking of a different team? But Iowa every year is great! I love these schedules. Already upgrading the SOS and I like that it’s not as backloaded as recent years have felt. I’m not bashing MSU, but to get through Michigan, Iowa, Illinois, and Penn State all in October really gets a lot of big games early. Hope that doesn’t hurt us given our traditional strong finishes in November.

Wow, great news. If I were in charge (and I’m obviously not) or had the last name Ryan, I would do the following things to Ryan Field:
1) Completely replace the South and East stands, as this would preserve the historic side of the stadium, and would allow them to build newer seating, with more amenities, and move the whole structure closer to the field. Also, it would eliminate the awkward section in the NE corner and the horseshoe seats in the South endzone that are closer to Hecky’s than they are to the field.
2) Build admin/offices/weight room in the NE corner (and possibly expand the current building in the North Endzone) to enclose the stadium a bit.
3) Build an entry plaza (space permitting) on the West or East Side of the stadium, where they could put in an NU athletic hall of fame museum, a store for selling gear, etc.

Not sure what else can be done, short of completely rebuilding the place. Also, Welsh-Ryan is so antiquated that I don’t know what I don’t know. I’ve always felt that old rickety basketball venues are better than new ones (see Williams Arena and Cameron Indoor)…not that Welsh-Ryan should ever be mentioned in the same sentence with those arenas.

LTP– If we go the expandable route (which I like), it has to be better than the Rice tarps over half the stadium (which is embarrassing). Maybe if we can demolish the south stands, make a matching east stands second deck, and put semi-permanent stands in the south end zone area as needed?

Another top of my head thought, to really show that I’m not the one in charge of all this:

Since it’s a review/renovation of all facilities, why not do something with Lakeside Field on campus? I think the new on-campus lakeside stadium idea is a bit too ambitious and too impractical, but if that complex could be expanded and improved– say, a modest stadium (20k seats), more complete facilities. Could that be used as a non-conference game venue and/or spring game location? (Plus soccer, lacrosse, etc.)

Realistically, we’re a long way from ever filling 47k seats for Illinois State or Eastern Illinois. When the weather’s nice in September, why not put football on campus? Drum up some student enthusiasm and play for a sold-out crowd (albeit smaller) with the nicest view in the country? Then for bigger non-conference crowds or for Big Ten season, move it back to Ryan Field.

Fantasizing is fun!

I like the outside the box thinking re: Lakefront Field, but I doubt they’d ever stage any football game there (except maybe the Spring Game, or a post-Kenosha practice).

What they could stage out there, though, is baseball and/or softball. The current baseball/softball facilities are okay, but could DEFINITELY use an upgrade. And any renovations to Welsh-Ryan/Ryan Field could use the extra space saved by relocating the baseball/softball fields. Plus, putting baseball and/or softball on the Lakefill would be incredible and arguably boost attendance — if you’ve ever been to see a Women’s Lacrosse game and sat in the stands, with the view of Chicago and Lake Michigan on a sunny day, you’ll know EXACTLY what I’m talking about.

So move softball/baseball on campus onto the Lakefill area (expanding the Lakefill if necessary and/or possible), expand Welsh-Ryan and Ryan Field using the space saved (including adding additional parking, football/coaches offices/players meeting rooms for all sports), renovate Bloomquist and Patten (both overdue for HUGE upgrades — or, at least, they were when I was there in 2001 — anyone on campus currently know)…..now you’re getting somewhere.

If the speakers are working…

On two dates this year, the most recent being the Michigan State game, fans in my section were struggling to hear the field announcer. The speaker over our heads were not working at all and we had to strain to hear announcements from speakers elsewhere in the stadium.

The field had temporary seats in the North endzone throughout much of the Parshegan era. With the added seats, I believe Northwestern sometimes had crowds approaching 55,000. There are drawings of Dyche Stadium with the East side of the stadium replicating the West side with an upper deck. Truthfully, I do not know if this is practical. I think that adding some extra seats and upgrades is a good idea, but improving the athletic facilities is the priority. I am not in favor of have a surplus number of seats if large sections of the stadium are going to be vacant for most games (spoken as a person who remembers Municipal Stadium in Cleveland when the Indians were playing to more empty seats than stands). I would rather have a Fenway or Wrigley situation where you have a intimate sports venue that is routinely sold out and tickets are in demand.

I am not excited to see Army on the schedule. We have had problems against teams that run the option and it has been great not seeing any on the schedule in the past few years.

Students aren’t there for most of September, but anyway, temporary stands make sense. The question is where do you put them? Convert the Northeast corner to to temporary stands (or put tarp on them most of the time)? Put seats up by the north end zone?

@[many of you] — Just because we PLAY Michigan and Nebraska every year, does not guarantee that we have one of them at HOME every year. While the current schedules have this arrangement, the Big Ten changes the schedule every two years, and does not guarantee that a team you played home and then away in say ’13 and ’14, you won’t play away and then home in ’15 and ’16. If this happened with say Michigan, and not Nebraska, we would have years were we go to the Big House and to Memorial Stadium (is that 3 in the big ten now?)

@Chad — RE Baseball move to Lakefill — Gotta say i disagree, for a couple reasons. 1) There simply is not space. Where would these stadiums go? Gotta think that expanding the lakefill would be prohibitively expensive, not to mention unthinkable given the poor relationship with Evanston. 2) Club and IM sports need field space out there, and already don’t have it. Because of Field Hockey (which I’m told requires old-school turf), they built a lacrosse stadium on the old rugby/ultimate field, instead of tearing down and rebuilding the old-school turf. As a result, club rugby lost its home (any students know where they play now?). And with the new stadium, club men’s lacrosse is still homeless (no men’s lax lines on either turf field). And since varsity soccer wants to play on grass, they still have the grass stadium on the lakefill as well. IM Sports also has space issues for soccer and ultimate. It seems like they are going to solicit student input, and given that far more students are involved in club and IM sports than in varsity ones, I think, or at least strongly hope, that they keep those sports in mind when they discuss the lakefill.

And since I have no other place to say it, and it constantly bugs me: why on earth don’t we have a varsity men’s lacrosse program? Just like in women’s, we could be competitive pretty much immediately due to how our school compares with other lacrosse powers. And (sorry, icehockeycat) it would be cheaper than hockey. Really we should have both, especially since the Big Ten is going to be an official hockey league in the near future. (I can dream about an era where title 9 doesn’t hold back men’s sports, can’t I? And I’ll step off my soap box now.)

STADIUM THOUGHTS

It’s clear that Ryan Field needs upgrades and I’m glad it will be incorporated in an overall athletics facilities plan (especially since Welsh-Ryan Arena REALLY needed an upgrade in 1985).

- Capacity: I’d want to see it stay around where it is now. Obviously NU isn’t in a position to look into expanding (right now) and reducing capacity would just lower potential revenue (especially since NU will almost always sell out against certain opponents, as others have mentioned). Maybe have an option for expansion, but I don’t think NU needs to reduce or expand significantly right now.

- Parking: I still want to see a good looking multi-story parking structure on the west side of the stadium with a roof level that will allow for tailgating. This would hopefully allow more people to park by the stadium while also keeping some tailgating.

- TVs in the Stadium: I’d really like to see TVs in the concourse areas (and bathrooms) at Ryan Field so I can get some food or use the restroom without missing the action; right now, you can’t even hear game audio in the concourse areas.

- South End Zone: demolish what is there and bring a new, better looking section closer to the field. As LTP advocates, this would allow some offices/workout areas to be built underneath/behind them.

- More Skyboxes: this is pretty obvious as a way to generate more revenue. I’m not sure about demand for them right now but if you can fill them, build them.

I’m very interested to see the proposal even though it’ll take some time to get to that point.

Unless lacrosse and ice hockey can draw enough attendance to at least pay for themselves (3-4K per game), they’re not going to happen, and I know lacrosse won’t draw that number because even the power programs where lacrosse is actually popular (the mid-Atlantic & NY state) only draw 3-4K per game. As for ice hockey, I don’t think NU ice hockey would be able to draw that much just by themselves, though being in Chicagoland and part of a BigTen ice hockey conference may get them to that number.

The administration simply isn’t going to start a sport that would be a financial drain (you need much more than equipment to start a sports program; scholarships, coaches, recruiting, and travel all cost money) that they would have to match with extra scholarships on the women’s side because of Title IX. Just because there’s already women’s lacrosse doesn’t mean you can add men’s lacrosse without adding anything on the women’s, because football takes up 85 scholarships and there’s nothing close that matches that on the women’s side. Essentially, a ton of nonrevenue women’s sports exist to match the behemoth that football is.

@Richard
Saying that they’re not going to have a sport becuase its a financial drain is not really a valid argument. None of NU’s sports turn a profit (not even football). If we’re not going to have sports that are financial drains, then NU should go the University of Chicago route and just abandon athletics all together. Also, I’ve already addressed Title IX in my comment about how it holds back men’s sports (which we all have football to thank f0r (even though we all love it — myself very much included…why do you think i’m on this blog?)).

Don’t hate on hockey and lacrosse. The more sports we compete in, the more sports we have a chance to win, and the more sports we win, the better our university looks. I don’t know about ice hockey, but it would be easy for NU to have a competitive men’s lacrosse program, which could only increase the profile of the university, increase enrollment and national awareness, and thus also increase our USNews type rankings.

Football should make plenty of money for us. We get like $22M from just the Big Ten’s agreements with ABC/ESPN/CBS and the BTN (for both football and basketball). I doubt we spent much more than $15M on football, so that right there tells you it’s hugely profitable. That’s not even counting money we get off tickets and the rest of the money we make off licensing.

Basketball probably breaks even because we don’t have a big arena and it’s only a small part of the TV agreements. The rest of the sports are money losers, but football makes enough to keep the athletic department rolling.