Northwestern announced this week that the school has created a partnership with Evanston Townships High School to host the school's sporting events at the new Ryan Field.
According to the Evanston Roundtable, the new stadium will play host to matches, events and other programming from Evanston Township High School’s sports teams and other local athletics organizations, collectively creating a “second anchor tenant” to the new football stadium slowly rising above Central Street.
The announcements were made at a press conference Wednesday to mark the one-year anniversary of the groundbreaking of the new Ryan Field.
“Our second anchor tenant isn’t going to be like everybody else’s,” said Pat Ryan Jr., a university trustee and CEO of Ryan Sports Development. “We’re not here to announce that we’ve signed some big concert promoter, we’re not here to announce we’ve brought in some other sports team.”
Besides ETHS, Northwestern is partnering with Kuumba Evanston, the Fellowship of Afro-American Men (FAAM) and the city’s Parks and Recreation Department to provide community access to the new stadium and the university’s broader athletic campus. These groups will fill out the stadium’s use alongside Northwestern’s football and women’s lacrosse teams and up to six public concerts per year, as approved in November 2023 through zoning changes packaged with NU’s stadium rebuild application.
“We are hopeful to partner with Northwestern Athletics and the Office of Community Relations to find ways to dismantle systemic barriers to sports participation,” ETHS athletic director Chris Livatino said, “so future generations of Evanstonians can enjoy and grow from their involvement in sports.”
