Messi and Inter Miami are playing at Soldier Field on August 31.
Maybe it will be at NIUs stadium
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NIU has a home game that day
Sounds like the only reasonable plan is to play the game in Oxford.
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Northwestern only has four Big 10 home games next season plus Miami and Duke at home. They’re not likely wanting to give up either of those non conference home games.
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The only options seem to be:
- Ryan Field if the renovation gets delayed
- A high school stadium
- Yager Stadium
I really hope Sayler is negotiating this contract into a home and home.
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Yep. And offer to make it game one of a one for two on down the road.
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Northwestern game contract linked below. $1.1 million guarantee
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They can’t afford to play it in a high school or D3 stadium…
True. Most people will be more interested in Messi than watching the Chicago Fire.
Nah, the downsizing down to 35K is very intentional. NU will always have a pretty niche but wealthy fan base with few casual fans, better to have a more intimate setting with tons of premium seats than an outdated and oversized facility that’s mostly empty all season except a couple of Big Ten games.
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NW would like to create an artificial scarcity by downsizing their stadium and forcing people to buy tickets before the season. They are also hoping that it will reduce the number of the visiting teams fans. What it will certainly accomplish is create a ticket brokers paradise
I suspect the date will be moved to Thursday or Friday and be held at Soldier Field or, possibly, Wrigley.
I like the idea of a Thursday night, nationally televised beatdown
I think the Thursday/Friday possibility makes sense
I dont think Wrigley would be an option until November
Bingo, and I’m sure they’re intentional about the new stadium design having a small lower deck so that the visiting fans are more likely to have upper deck seats away from the camera (unlike now where it points to the away sideline that’s often dominated by away fans).
I agree that moving up to Thursday/Friday is the most likely scenario, assuming the Chicago Park District (Soldier Field landlord) and MLS are fine. If not, perhaps NU applies for a Week 0 waiver. Either way we improve our TV standing and keep the big payday so I’m on board, so long as the game goes better than our Friday opener from this past season. Home game would be ideal but Sayler hasn’t been eager to sacrifice paydays for home P5 games.
The extra exposure would be nice, but not a fan of this in general. We have a week 2 bye next season, so moving the Northwestern game would mean that we’d be off two weeks in a row.
Sayler generally hasn’t been one to forgo a payday, but given that the team is openly talking playoffs, I wonder if he’d be open to going against type and renegotiating it as a home and home.
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Is the Week 2 bye for certain? No OOC game, but the MAC could theoretically schedule an early season game for us.
It’s not officially official, but we’re the only MAC team without a nonconference game that week and next year will be a 15 week season, so it’s basically certain that it’ll be a bye week.
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I hope it stays a bye week. That could be a useful tool before the UC game.
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