How Northwestern's lakefront stadium went from a dream to reality

What seemed a few weeks ago like a pipe dream full of hopeful tweets and ambitious renderings will soon become reality.

Northwestern announced on Wednesday that they will build a temporary stadium on the lakefront to host football games for the 2024 and 2025 seasons, while Ryan Field is under construction. It will be swiftly constructed before the 2024 season opener on Aug. 31, and then disassembled when the new Ryan Field is ready in 2026.

It’s a bold idea, one that required out-of-the-box thinking. Instead of playing their home football in a variety of venues around the Chicagoland area, the Wildcats will play the majority of their home games on campus, in a tight space already packed with sports facilities.

The irony is that the person who first had the vision to build a temporary facility on the shores of Lake Michigan is none other than the man who was the face of the program for nearly two decades: previous head coach Pat Fitzgerald.

Fitzgerald was fired last July in the wake of a hazing scandal and is currently suing the school for wrongful termination. But his initial dream is being realized, thanks to a lot of behind-the-scenes work by a small core of prominent alumni, key trustees, football coach David Braun and athletic director Dr. Derrick Gragg.

Fitzgerald first floated the idea of a temporary lakefront stadium a couple years ago, according to Jay Sharman, the prominent alumnus who is also the man behind the NU social media presence LakeThePosts. Sharman said that Fitzgerald texted several people about his idea while watching the Waste Management Phoenix Open.

That golf tournament is famous for building a temporary stadium, nicknamed "The Coliseum", around the 16th hole for its event every year. Fitzgerald saw that and, according to Sharman, texted several people with something like, ‘How about building something like this on Lake Michigan?’

Northwestern Athletics declined to comment as it relates to Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald declined to comment due to pending litigation.

Fitzgerald's idea was initially met with skepticism, said Sharman. There would be serious logistical hurdles to overcome for any such project to be realized. But it got enough traction for the university to consult InProduction, the company responsible for building the Coliseum for the Phoenix Open, to do a “top-level, cursory” study, according to Sharman. They determined they could, indeed, build a temporary stadium on the lakefront.

However, at the time of initial discussions, in March of 2023, there was a significant sticking point.

"The original concept and design would have displaced field hockey and we weren’t supportive of that," Gragg stated in a response to our request for comment. "That was a non-starter."

Building a temporary stadium that overlapped field hockey's Lakeside Field would have ousted a team that has appeared in three straight national title games, winning a championship in 2021. Lakeside Field's surface is made of a specific, distinctive turf designed exclusively for the sport, so a new home for football would have directly led to a difficult relocation process for a second Wildcat team.

With other options in the Chicagoland area to pursue without such consequences, "the idea died on the vine," said Sharman.

It might have remained that way, if Sharman didn't revive it.

MORE ON THE LAKEFRONT STADIUM: Braun 'really proud of university leadership' for lakefront stadium | Northwestern to build temporary lakefront stadium for 2024-25 seasons

Thomas Edison said that “success is 10 percent inspiration and 90 percent perspiration.” Fitzgerald supplied the inspiration. Sharman, Gragg and a few other key individuals would go on to supply the perspiration.

“Me, being the nosy dude I am, I started poking around,” said Sharman, whose day job is the CEO and Founder of TeamWorks Media, a branding agency that's done work for Northwestern, the Big Ten and many others. “This was an amazing idea. I started asking, ‘Why can’t we do this?'"

He didn’t get what he thought was an adequate answer to his question, so he started spreading the word among his lengthy list of Northwestern contacts. A couple months ago, Sharman sent out an email about the lakefront stadium to his LakeThePosts email list. It's an impressive group of influential Northwestern alumni, including trustees, celebrities and media personalities.

“[The idea] universally struck a chord,” said Sharman.

It also created a firestorm. Some of the trustees on the list were taken aback because it was the first they heard of the idea. They started asking questions, encouraged by Sharman.

“You are in a position of influence,” Sharman said to the many people who reached out to him. “Go talk to leadership.”

Meanwhile, Gragg and his athletic department were being heavily criticized as the 2024 season drew closer and closer and they still didn’t know where the Wildcats were going to play their home games. An idea to play an Oct. 19 game against Wisconsin at Lambeau Field in Green Bay was leaked at an alumni gathering in New York City and summarily blasted on social media.

Public pressure, and the realization that the frequent alternative venue would likely be SeatGeek Stadium, rather than Soldier Field, led to a reevaluation among trustees and the athletic department about the lakefront stadium project within the last couple months.

An adjusted design was put forward with the new stadium's footprint being built atop the existing Lanny and Sharon Martin Stadium, the home of Northwestern's soccer and lacrosse teams; and Ethel and Chap Hutcheson Field, where the football team currently practices But, most significantly, not field hockey's Lakeside Field.

Now Gragg, who was initially resistant, got behind the new proposal.

"I was always open to the idea if it was inclusive of the other impacted sports and their coaches," Gragg stated.

Braun was Northwestern's defensive coordinator during initial discussions, but once a model was put forward in recent weeks that wouldn’t have a negative impact on other programs, he was on board. Sharman pitched Northwestern’s second-year coach himself when he ran into him at a health club.

Braun, said Sharman, saw the temporary stadium as a valuable recruiting tool. You can imagine what the lakefront views will look like on television. It may also give his team a home-field atmosphere they lacked last season, when crowds were usually sparse. That would probably continue over the next two seasons if the Wildcats were to play in a revolving array of stadiums.

Braun threw his full weight behind the project. He and deputy athletic director Jesse Marks lobbied heavily within the athletic department and the university administration.

Braun's advocacy was critical, said a source close to the process who asked for anonymity. The project "wouldn't have happened without his leadership," he said.

The source identified a group of five people as critical to the success of the project: Gragg, Marks and Braun within the building, and then trustee Bob Hayward leading the charge amongst the Board of Trustees, while drawing on expertise from his brother, Wally Hayward.

Wally graduated Northwestern in 1990 and was the Vice President of Marketing and Sales for the Chicago Cubs from 2010-13 before resigning to start W Partners, a sports and marketing agency, in partnership with the Ricketts Family.

The source said that Marks and the Haywards were responsible for the money side of the equation. Football serves as the lead profit center for the Northwestern athletics department, as it does for any other Power Four school. It is the tide that floats all boats, and an expensive construction project could cause some of those smaller boats to take on water.

Two sources confirmed that building the stadium, and the loss of revenue from several thousand fewer fans per game, would cost the school "somewhere around $10-12 million." So not only would the project have to clear logistical hurdles, but it would also have to make up for the losses it would create for the athletic department.

"The biggest challenge was to ensure it could be done without budget cuts [to other programs]," the source said.

Thanks to the work of Marks and the Haywards, there is confidence that fundraising, and utilizing more profitable venues like Wrigley Field or Soldier Field late in both seasons, can offset the monetary deficit.

The source said that Bob Hayward, a fourth-generation Northwestern alumnus and a partner at the Kirkland & Ellis law firm, was not only able to prove that budget cuts in the athletic department could be avoided through fundraising; he also pulled off the feat of securing a commitment of funds from the university itself.

There is a lot of heavy lifting ahead in terms of meeting those fundraising goals, but the source said that Hayward's leadership "convinced everyone that the risk of coming up short is low."

Sharman credits Hayward, who was just named to the Board of Trustees in 2022, for doing much of the dirty work behind the scenes with the often unwieldy board that has more than 60 members.

“I still can’t believe it,” Sharman posted on X on Wednesday. “Bob Hayward deserves [Hall of Fame] status. I’m so damn excited.”

WildcatReport reached out to Hayward for comment, but he did not respond before publishing.

The Wildcats will still play some games at other venues. Northwestern's press release said that "a majority" of the football team's seven scheduled home games will be played at the temporary facility, which likely means four games: non-conference games against Miami (OH), Duke and Eastern Illinois, and the Big Ten home opener against Indiana on Oct. 5.

Games that figure to draw larger crowds, like Wisconsin, Ohio State and Illinois, the last three contests of the season, could be played at Wrigley Field or Soldier Field. WildcatReport's previous reporting establishes a high probability that the Nov. 16 Homecoming game against Ohio State will be played at Wrigley Field.

As for the coaches of the displaced sports -- men’s soccer coach Russell Payne, women’s soccer coach Michael Moynihan and women’s lacrosse coach Kelly Amonte Hiller – they were all “very much on board,” said Sharman. The university's release confirmed that those three programs will utilize the expanded lakefront stadium and are excited about the possibility.

The Big Ten, too, was supportive, according to Sharman. Earlier this week the Evanston City Council quickly approved Northwestern's initial application after several of its members fought tooth-and-nail for two years against the Ryan Field reconstruction project before mayor Daniel Biss broke a tie to pass it in November.

After fracturing for months while searching for a home for its football team, the whole Northwestern community was suddenly united behind this seemingly far-fetched idea that went from off the table to on the table almost overnight. The momentum only increased from there.

“The university and the athletic department were aligned, trying to make it happen,” said Sharman.

Northwestern’s release was short on details, but Sharman said that the stadium will seat “around 15,000.” It will take InProduction about eight weeks to build it, and with the home opener some 14 weeks away, time is of the essence. Parking, according to Sharman, will be provided by the eight-level garage attached to the Walter Athletics Center, as well as the Canal Shores Golf Course and Ryan Field’s West Lot on Central Avenue, with shuttle bus service.

A stadium that size means that many season ticket holders won’t be able to go to all of the games. But Sharman said that all of the Northwestern ticket holders he’s spoken to voiced their support for the project from the beginning. They told him that they would rather go to a limited number of games on the lakefront than drive an extra 30 miles south to Bridgeview to watch the Wildcats play at SeatGeek Stadium, a soccer venue.

“The consensus was that, ‘If it’s good for the program, I’m in. If I can only go to a couple of games, that’s fine,'” said Sharman.

Braun thanked both the university leadership and fans for making it all happen.

"I can't tell you how much I appreciate so many people stepping up and saying, in the interest of our student-athletes and university, 'Let's go. Let's go attack this,'" he said.

Sharman said that the university looks at the endeavor as an opportunity to renew student interest in football on campus. The transformation of Northwestern’s basketball program represents the best-case scenario. Once sleepy Welsh-Ryan Arena has turned into an electric game-day venue with rabid student support over the last two years, when the Wildcats produced two NCAA Tournament teams.

Basketball became a hot ticket with the help of the Wildside student fan organization and star guard Boo Buie. Students often lined up more than an hour before tipoff to ensure themselves good seats in the packed student sections behind each basket. A points system was put in place to give priority to students who had supported other NU teams at their games.

Yes, the new lakefront stadium projects to be about a third of the size of the old Ryan Field, and less than half the size of the new one. That doesn't concern Braun.

"There's something about a small venue," said Braun. "It creates an energy source... We all know it will be led by our students... No [one] talks about the capacity at Welsh-Ryan. They talk about the environment."

With an on-campus venue, the hope is that students will become just as interested in football as they are in basketball. Instead of schlepping a mile to Central Street on Saturday mornings, students in dorms will only have to walk a couple hundred yards to games.

"I'm not sure how many students would have gone out and trekked an hour drive away regularly," said linebacker Xander Mueller. "Playing on campus, we'll have guys walk over from Bobb[-McCulloch] and the other dorms on campus. It'll be awesome to get those guys there."

Think of Northwestern's Dillo Day, with a football game in the middle of it. Even if they can't get into the game, students can come to the event.

The athletic department also hopes to leverage the lakefront stadium to “educate the masses about the future of Ryan Field,” said Sharman. “Many people say, ‘I won’t be able to afford to get tickets in the new stadium.’ And that’s not true.”

Northwestern will have a captive audience every week to make their pitch to sell tickets to their new, state-of-the-art stadium. If the Wildcats can continue their success and have another year like they did last season, when they won a bowl game after being left for dead by the media, it might go a long way toward future season ticket sales.

So here we are, fewer than five months until the start of the season. Fitzgerald's idea will soon turn into a construction site. Northwestern finally has a home venue for several of its home games over the next two years.

Gragg and Braun often spoke of using the opportunity of Ryan Field’s reconstruction to allow the football team to play in some iconic venues. What they didn’t expect is that the most iconic one would be built on their own campus.