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Northwestern will open Ryan Field, its new $862 million stadium, in prime time on Friday, Oct. 2, for the Wildcats’ Big Ten opener against Penn State.
The new facility will debut exactly 100 years after Northwestern Stadium opened on the same site.
The Wildcats’ first two home contests — vs. South Dakota State on Sept. 5 and vs. Colorado on Sept. 19 — will be played at Northwestern Medicine Field at Martin Stadium, a smaller on-campus facility flanking Lake Michigan where the Wildcats have hosted the majority of games the past two seasons.
The team’s remaining five home games will be played at Ryan Field.
Northwestern’s new Ryan Field, shown in this artist rendering, will make its debut on Oct. 2 when the Wildcats host Penn State in their Big Ten opener. Courtesy: Ryan Sports Development
For more than a year, Ryan Field organizers had designated the fall of 2026 to open the 35,000-seat facility. When demolition work began later than initially hoped, in February 2024, organizers privately targeted mid-September 2026 for completion. The timeline has been maintained despite inflation challenges and more days lost to harsh weather than originally expected.
“Those [first two] games were likely always going to be on the lake,” Pat Ryan Jr., CEO of Ryan Sports Development, told ESPN. “The only way we would have been able to support those games is if we finished early, and just with the weather alone, there’s no way we were going to get this thing done then. So we’ve had tough headwinds, but we’ve had some good tailwinds because of great people. And the stadium, despite all of this, is going to end up being delivered in mid-September, on time.”
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Ryan said Northwestern will use the time between the construction completion and the Penn State game to conduct a soft open, which involves testing stadium operations and troubleshooting. The team also will hold some practices there before facing the Nittany Lions.
“We thought we’d wait until the Big Ten schedule was finalized to really lock in where we’re going to be,” athletic director Mark Jackson told ESPN. “This does give us some breathing room to get in the building, operate it right, get a feel, do some events, get the team in there, do all the things we want to do, as opposed to Sept. 5, which would have really put us in a bind.”
Jackson said the Friday prime-time kickoff slot was appealing to allow fans to experience the stadium throughout the day.
The stadium project has been billed as the largest in college football history. The original project goal was $800 million, but Ryan said it swelled to $922 million before being “value-engineered” to $862 million, with the Ryan family covering the majority of costs.
The Wildcats are coming off their second bowl win under coach David Braun, and hired Chip Kelly, the former college and NFL coach, as their new offensive coordinator several weeks ago.
“I strongly believe it’ll be the nation’s finest college football stadium when all is said and done,” Jackson said. “The intimacy of the stadium, the sight lines associated with it, that’s the opportunity to create an unbelievable home-field advantage.”
