What’s Behind Midseason Opening of Northwestern’s New $862M Stadium 

EVANSTON, ILL. — Northwestern’s new Ryan Field won’t be ready for the Wildcats’ first home game of the 2026 season. 

But Pat Ryan Jr. doesn’t classify it as a delay. 

The CEO of Ryan Sports Development told Front Office Sports that the original opening date for the 35,000-seat stadium had already been pushed back before they broke ground on the stadium due to issues with local approval.

“When we originally had the plan, we hoped to have the stadium done for the first week of the season,” Ryan said Tuesday during the ceremonial installation of the stadium’s first seats. “We had an extended political process to get approvals, and so by the time we got approvals, the original demolition date, Dec. 6, [2023], was already past. And so when we started demolition on Feb. 14, [2024], the delivery date, the target delivery date, was mid-September [2026].”

The stadium will be unveiled Oct. 2 against Penn State, the Wildcats’ third home game of the year and first home Big Ten conference match-up. The Wildcats will open their season against South Dakota State on Sept. 5 at Martin Stadium—the temporary lakefront stadium they have played at for the last two seasons—and will also play Colorado there on Sept. 19.

They visit national champion Indiana on Sept. 26 in Bloomington before their home opener on Oct. 2. The Wildcats are scheduled to play five home games at Ryan Field during the 2026 season.

The new stadium is replacing the old Ryan Field, which was named after Ryan Jr.’s father, Patrick Ryan Sr., and is being largely funded by the Ryan family.

The Evanston community challenged the Ryan Field rebuild in 2023 as the university sought a zoning change from the city that would allow it to host concerts and serve alcohol at the stadium, which the previous stadium was not allowed to do. But Northwestern secured approval for the new stadium in November 2023 and broke ground in June 2024.

Northwestern has consistently promoted a fall 2026 opening for their new stadium since the beginning of the build. Ryan said they hoped they could deliver it “early” for Week 1 of the 2026 season, but a brutal winter derailed that plan.

“From the moment this project broke ground, mid-September was always the goal,” Ryan said. “There was a hope we could deliver it early, but with the weather we’ve had, delivering it early has just not been an option.” (Chicago has experienced an above-average amount of snowfall during the 2025–26 winter season, particularly in November and December, according to data from The Chicago Tribune.)

Ryan also would not guarantee an Oct. 2 opening date given potential weather conditions, despite an announced Ryan Field opener.

“Everybody is working towards that date. The team is confident they can hit that date. We can’t prognosticate the weather; we’re doing our best,” Ryan said. 

As of Tuesday, the stadium’s canopy has been installed, the first of the limestone walls outside the stadium have been placed, along with most of the railings of the “Purple Wall,” a 2,000-capacity student section akin to “The Wall” at the Intuit Dome. They plan to begin placing the field in July.

Effect on Season Tickets

Information about season ticket prices at the New Ryan Field is expected in the spring. But Ryan told FOS that the two-stadium set-up means that season-ticket buyers will have the option to buy season tickets for all seven home games or exclusively for the five Ryan Field games.

The option will be included in part because Martin Stadium only has about a third of the capacity of new Ryan Field.

Budget Update

Ryan told FOS in July that the budget for the privately funded stadium had increased to $862 million, up slightly from the original projection of $856 million. He would not provide an exact figure of the project final cost Tuesday, but said they expect to be “within one to two percent” of the budget.

A 1% increase would mean $870.6 million, while 2% would mean $879 million. He also pointed at the weather as the most volatile variable cost.

“We’re still aiming in that range,” Ryan said. “There’s a lot left, and it depends a lot on overtime [pay] … Making up weather days has been our only big challenge.”