Northwestern University’s brand-new$ 850 million venue task has two significant and almost contradictory phrases. The most expensive university football stadium always constructed will be completed in 2026. Additionally, it will have the smallest number of Power Two team in attendance.
The fresh Ryan Field, lot financed by the billionaire Ryan family, may have 35, 000 tickets. That’s 12, 000 fewer than the school’s earlier sports stadium, and 42, 000 chairs smaller than the common among the other Big Ten and SEC institutions. The next smallest venue in that cohort is 40, 550 ( Vanderbilt ), and it was built in 1922.
So what is Northwest thinking? First, there are some useful concerns. Mathematically, without a 40, 000-seat top dish, the entire facility may be closer to the action, allowing for better sightlines. Economically, top bowl chairs are the most expensive to build and usually produce the least income.

More widely, however, presence across college basketball is down about 13 % since 2010, and some colleges with bigger facilities struggle to fill the top reaches of their arenas. The new Ryan Field does have four different levels of those dearest options, and the majority of the ticket sales are made from prime seating—suites, box chairs, and other hospitality areas.
The question is then,” How do you invest in something that does n’t just increase the number of people in the rafters?” Patrick Ryan Jr. said in an exam. You eliminate the worst seats and make somebody else’s experiences better. That’s the craze I think we’re going to see”.
In recent years, the school has seen a portrait of this financial fact. The Wildcats played the 2023 season in the ancient Ryan Field, a 47, 000-seat place built in 1926, which had just one part of superior chairs, a sky with about 350 tickets. The Wildcats ‘ first four games were played at a temporary place with significantly more expensive tickets for the 12, 000-seat capacity this year. Athletic director Mark Jackson claimed that despite having less than a third of the power, the pop-up location generated more income per sport.
In the new place, about 10 % of the facility will be in higher-priced superior places, and those followers will cover 40-50 % of the income each game, Ryan said. He added that the organization intends to use that advantage to even sell some tickets for less than they did in the first Ryan Field.
” In the ancient stadium we were subsidizing the rich”, he said.
Ryan, whose family owns the Chicago Bears, said he had talked to different colleges about their locations and had heard the same thing frequently: that fans in top bowls tend to get out of their seats and socialize like they’re in a sports pub. In a world where viewers can watch any activity, from any position, from the comfort of their chairs, the low seats were n’t beautiful. But in-venue chatting was.
Ryan claims his home focused on more than 200, 000 square feet of courtyards and open spaces around the venue rather than adding more seats to the venue tab. Those are all within the grounds of the stadium footprint, so ticket-holders do n’t queue up to enter the building, but rather to enter the grounds.

” The tower is twice as big per enthusiast as our ancient building from a square footage perspective, even though we took out a second of the seating”, Ryan said, “because of the activities we invested in instead”.
Northwestern is n’t alone in thinking smaller. The NFL has a scheme, for now, that facilities must have power of 70, 000 votes to host the Super Bowl, but new venues in that category are getting smaller. The Buffalo Bills are building at roughly 60, 000, as are the Tennessee Titans. Stanford in 2005 renovated its stadium to reduce capacity to 50, 026 from 85, 000.
That said, in the race for revenue in college sports, many schools are doing the opposite. SMU completed a$ 100 million project that will increase its football capacity from 32, 000 to 45, 000 after the ACC was added this past year. Rutgers, following its 2014 move to the Big Ten, increased capacity to 52, 454 from 41, 500.