Northwestern Mega Donor Reveals Development Plan of New Ryan Field
Located at the corner of Central Street and Ashland Avenue, Ryan Field has been a staple of the Evanston community for nearly a century. The original Dyche Stadium opened in 1926, was renovated and renamed in 1996 and hosted Northwestern football games until 2023.
As endearing as Ryan Field was to Wildcat fans everywhere, the rusty bleachers and outdated style were in dire need of an upgrade for several years. When the funding for an improvement came in 2022 from billionaire mega-donor and stadium namesake Pat Ryan, the Northwestern administration had two options: either work to renovate the existing stadium or tear down the beloved building and start anew.
Ryan and the University opted for the latter, announcing an $850 million private investment to create a state-of-the-art football stadium and entertainment venue. According to Pat Ryan Jr., the son of NU's biggest donor and CEO of Ryan Sports Development, the decision to build a new Ryan Field was a no-brainer.
"The original idea was to renovate the old stadium," Ryan Jr. said on Sirius XM on Thursday. "It was well overdue. As we looked at the costs of renovating a 100-year-old building, we'd have to put so much money into shoring up the concrete, things that wouldn't impact the student athlete experience, wouldn't impact the fan experience, and we'd spend a lot of money to get very little."
The previous Ryan Field had stood for nearly a hundred years, leaving Northwestern and the Ryan family to think about what the stadium would be like another hundred years into the future. Deciding to look forward, an idea was hatched that Ryan Jr. called "the first NFL-type stadium" in college sports.
"We're a long way from the 100-year-old bowl that was the cutting-edge technology in the 1920s," Ryan Jr. said. "What you can do today is very different, and that's really what we do at Northwestern. [We're] trying to be at the highest order of excellence in everything, whether it's performing arts, science, the humanities or athletics."
The Wildcats last played at Ryan Field in November 2023, and after two years split between Martin Stadium and Wrigley Field, Northwestern expects to return to play football for the 2026 season.
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Gavin Dorsey is the Lead Writer for Northwestern Wildcats On SI and covers a handful of other teams in the On SI network. Before joining On SI in February 2025, he wrote for the Star Tribune and Inside NU while broadcasting college sports for both radio and television. Dorsey is a graduate of Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism, where he also studied psychology. In his free time, he enjoys running and being outdoors. Dorsey is currently a freelance writer for the Associated Press, covering Chicago area sports teams.