As Ryan Field nears its reopening date, more details are being released about Northwestern’s new stadium on Central Street. Ryan Field will feature the Wildcat Wall, the first European-style supporters’ section in college football, according to CEO of Ryan Sports Development Pat Ryan Jr. (Kellogg ’97, Pritzker ’97).

The stadium will also feature the ETHS-New Trier football game and several community festivals throughout the year. Ryan said concerts, however, will not take place in the stadium until 2027. 

Ryan spoke with The Daily following a May news conference announcing the ETHS-New Trier football game to be held at Ryan Field about his goals for the project and interactions with incoming President Mung Chiang.

This interview has been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.

The Daily: How do you hope Northwestern students take advantage of the new Ryan Field and become part of the broader Evanston community?

Ryan: Well, I think there are two different things here. The first one is, it’s natural, in college life, to live in your own universe, and you are so busy between school and extracurriculars and everything else going on. So, I think we feel like trying to bring the community here, whether it’s for community festivals that will also be for Northwestern students or having sports events, is a really great chance to sort of bring us together.

The second thing is, we just announced our renderings. We’ve designed this thinking about students first. So when you ask the student athletes what matters to them, it’s the energy of the building. And if you look at college sports, as we’ve seen in Welsh-Ryan (Arena), the energy of the building is the students. Students are the heart of this building. We designed this building around students.

First, we looked at who are the most fanatical sports fans in the world. We decided they were European football fans, and they have these supporter sections that are intense. And we imported one of those to create what we call the Wildcat Wall, which will be the first European football supporter section in college football, and the Wildcat Wall is gonna be this really cool place on top of the end zone for our students to be.

We’ve built this beautiful hall called Paynter Family Hall to host, basically, parties before the game, food, festivities, a lot of fun stuff. We’re bringing tailgating back into the parking lots. What we’ve tried to do is say, “How do we bring the community together in a way?” because you guys are so busy. This is a very competitive school. The quarter system, where I know everybody feels like they just took midterms and you’re on to finals, but we want you to have some fun, too. We want you to celebrate. We want you to be with people beyond just your student group and beyond the school you’re in because you’re obviously working very intensively academically.

So we’ve gone to great lengths to create what will be a fun environment that brings one Northwestern together to have fun, to celebrate, to support, and we have some surprises. We unveiled some surprises last week. We have some more surprises when you guys come back in the fall that will be the chance to make this the most exciting and fun student experience in all of college football.

We spent some time with Wildside. We spent some time going around the country and the world looking at what are the most energizing and exciting things. I think you guys should be really excited about (it). And listen, it’ll be yours to make of it. We’re gonna provide the environment, and it’ll be yours.

The Daily: Do you hope the stadium sets a new precedent for what a college stadium can be like?

Ryan: Well, I think in some ways, we’ll stand out. People (are) talking about us being the first NFL-type stadium of college football. That’s because of the cost, and it’s because of the size and the scale. But actually, we’ve designed this as a college stadium, just a nice one. And what it means is we’ve designed it, like I talked about, for the student areas, but we’ve designed it for festivals.

When we do these community festivals, we’re thinking first about students and thinking about the Northwestern community. Universities often spend time talking about what students shouldn’t do. Liability and risk and rules, and that’s all appropriate, and I’ll leave that to student life. But (we wondered), “How do you build positive experiences that aren’t necessarily alcohol-focused?” I think putting these festivals on gives us a chance to invest in something that would be too big for the student affairs budget but can add a dimension to student life, fun things to do. You want to go ice skating in the winter. You want to go sledding. You want to have a Halloween festival.

How do we add exciting things, and how do we use that on game day here? How do we make the most fun experiences of your time here, not just Dillo Day? But how do we make a Dillo Day every Saturday?

The Daily: What communication have you had with incoming University President Mung Chiang? 

Ryan: I was on the search committee, so I know him. He’s fantastic. He’s exciting, he’s excited.

There’s three things I’d say about our new president: He is someone who loves college leadership. He was a very successful technologist, had a company, and he came back because he loves universities, and he’s a great scholar, and he’s in some of the greatest academic societies that you can be a part of.

The first thing he said to us is he valued it all. He quoted our poet laureate, he quoted poetry, talked about (artificial intelligence). To pigeonhole him as an engineer is to not understand.

He wants to lead the whole university, and that’s what excited (him) about Northwestern.

So that’s the first thing is, he really believes in (the University). Second thing is, he is a passionate fellow. The third is, he loves students. He came (and) he had breakfast with some trustees for the announcement. He went to the dining hall. He was at the (lacrosse) National Championship game in the crowd.

(At) Purdue, he went to the student section. He has a tradition called “Among the Crowd,” playing off his name. He loves students, he loves the community, he loves to engage. He has excitement about creating a vision for Northwestern. He said, “I’m here to listen first. I want to understand our community so I can lead us rather than expect people to just follow me.”

The Daily: Is there anything you want to add?

Ryan: I would encourage you to take a look at what we put out last week, because it’s gonna be unique. …

This is gonna (add) a dimension to campus life that I think students don’t yet fully understand and appreciate, but I think will be exciting.

But again, we’re just providing the setting. It’ll be you all who bring it to life.

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— Football: ‘Wildcat Wall’ to emulate European soccer supporter sections