That’s because in Brunswick, they like to stew.
It takes a lot to make a stew.
It’s just like playing at Hawaii! Lol
What a joke. It sounds like it will be like going to a CYO game and standing on the grass, or if you are lucky, in the aluminum bleachers they rolled over from the softball diamond.
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Northwestern is scheduled to open the 2024 season with three consecutive games at home against the Miami RedHawks (Aug. 31), Duke Blue Devils (Sept. 7), and Eastern Illinois Panthers (Sept. 14). All three of those contests are likely candidates for the temporary stadium.
The Wildcats are scheduled to host four Big Ten opponents in 2024 — Indiana on Oct. 5, Wisconsin on Oct. 19, Ohio State on Nov. 16, and Illinois on Nov. 30. The Ohio State and Wisconsin contests are prime candidates to be played at Wrigley Field, Soldier Field or another Chicago-area site.
We’re less than 5 months away from the opening kick-off to the 2024 season and NONE of the above venue options have been confirmed or secured for NU’s seven “home” games. It seems to me that the Big 10 office needs to step in and start swinging a big stick. This is a clown show.
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If they’re going to have to rush a temporary stadium construction project in order to pay us $1.1 million to play them in a high school sized stadium, it would seem something could be worked out as an alternative, perhaps a two for one for the $1.1 million involving playing this year’s game at Yager on August 31 and then two at Northwestern’s new stadium somewhere down the road.
We have open dates in 2026, 2028 and 2029. Northwestern has open dates during the same seasons.
Anyone have a reaction to this?
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I can’t imagine that the disruption to facilities and liability associated with makeshift stands would have even made this a consideration.
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On the Athletic, a Northwestern prof with an office that overlooks the proposed site said he can’t imagine them being able to cram in more than 5,000 additional seats.
Immediate reaction is that we now lose 1.1 million this year which I’m sure has already been built into the budget and probably lose ~2 million in future buy game revenue. And in exchange we get a home game against Northwestern which is nice, but we already have a solid home slate (6 games, UC/UMass OOC+Ohio home on a Saturday).
I get why people here want a home game against a beatable P5 team, but it’s just not that realistic IMO.
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And the going rate to buy a G5 team has been steadily increasing.
Northwestern - $1.1MM
ND - $1.25MM
Wisconsin - $1.6MM
Pitt - $1.1MM (rescheduled from 2020 under the same agreement)
Purdue - $1.4MM
But we would get an extra game with them at their place, presumably at up to $1.1 million. Perhaps we could agree to do the 2024 game at our place if we got the $1.1 m or most of it by 02/2025 as specified in the current contract. We could play them in 2026 and 2028 there - perhaps at a discount for them for getting us the 2024 money up front.
2 for 1 deals don’t involve full payments for both away games, the 1 home game is part of the payment.
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It just seems something mutually beneficial could be worked out. Right now Northwestern loses most of the anticipated gate from the 2024 game and four Big 10 teams might see their share of Northwestern away games capped at $300 k. We actually win financially under the current scenario because they will owe us $1.1 m regardless of the size of their stadium and attendance that date. But our fans lose big time.
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I was just curious and saw U of Illinois has an open weekend the weekend of our game. At 2 hours and change drive, I sorta wonder why they didn’t look to use that site. Or, maybe Illinois pulled a Hall & Oats on them and said “I can’t go for that. No can do.”
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NW would never agree to come to oxford
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Probably not but they did once in 2006
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And they are also highly adamant that they should never be referred to as NW. lol
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From Chicago, Ross-Ade Stadium in West Lafayette, IN is closer than Memorial Stadium in Champaign, IL.
Re: 2024 NU/MU game: I’m going to try to make it. I made the move to Chicago for the foreseeable future (affordability, culture, healthcare, not-so-crazy political environment), and want to explore Miami games in person for a change. Will also try to make Notre Dame, and Purdue in a few years, God willing.
Re: Future schedules (Purdue, Wisconsin, etc.): Conference re-alignment is going to make it so the also-rans of the B1G and SEC play more regional FB games. I am expecting more Miami U vs Purdue, Wisconsin, Iowa State, Michigan State, UK and Vandy type games after the appeasement of the pigs (Ohio State vs Georgia, Oklahoma vs USC, Florida vs Michigan, etc.) by ESPN, Fox Sports, etc.
(edit to clarify Miami vs other regional FB teams)
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Yep. You’re right. I looked it up. It ended up being the Randy Walker tribute game, played two months after he died unexpectedly from a heart attack. He’d scheduled the game after he became the NU coach. Sad.
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To put it simply, I just think there’s no way to make it mutually beneficial.
Miami doesn’t generally schedule 2 for 1s since we need revenue from buy games. For it to make sense to try to switch this years game on short notice, we’d need some sort of extra leverage to get an unusually good deal to justify it and I don’t think that exists.
The NW admin have incurred a lot of anger already from their fan base for failing to figure out the stadium deal, and for moving a home game against Wisconsin to Green Bay. Moving another game away from home and dropping them to just 5 home games has to be off the table for them, let alone for worse terms than they’d normally sign a 2 for 1 for.
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