Temporary seating expands in college football

LAKEFRONT PROPERTY: Northwestern Medicine Field at Martin Stadium, Northwestern University’s temporary football stadium, opened on Aug. 31, the first of five home games in 2024 at the 12,000-seat venue. (Ryan Kuttler/Northwestern Athletics)

Bridging the gap between new stadiums, renovations

Temporary stadium seating has become a permanent trend across the college football landscape.

Northwestern, Florida State and Hawaii have all found solutions for using temporary seating structures in some fashion to serve as a bridge between building new stadiums and renovating existing facilities.

The projects vary in scope. They extend from Northwestern’s new pop-up 12,000-seat football stadium, featuring more premium seat options than old Ryan Field, which is currently undergoing a two-year reconstruction, to installing 7,400 temporary seats at Doak Campbell Stadium so Florida State doesn’t lose too much capacity while the building’s west side goes through a renovation.

Northwestern’s two-year rental with InProduction, the seating vendor building the modular structure, is a $15 million investment for the university, according to industry sources familiar with the project.

Denise Barracato, Northwestern’s deputy director of athletics overseeing both the Ryan Field rebuild and the temporary venue, Northwestern Medicine Field at Martin Stadium, would not mention the cost for the pop-up project and said the total investment remains a moving target as the building continues to takes shape.

For Northwestern, selling a two-year deal for the temporary stadium’s field naming rights to the healthcare network helps defer the eight-figure expense. Financial terms were not disclosed.

In Tallahassee, Florida, as part of a two-year, $265 million renovation of the 74-year-old stadium, temporary chairback seats were installed in the lower half of the west side, while the top half of the structure on that side remains under construction. Portable restrooms and concessions are part of the setup.

For the 2024 season, capacity falls to 55,000 at Doak Campbell Stadium, more than 20,000 fewer seats than before the renovation. Final capacity will run about 68,000 when the project is completed in 2025.

Three years ago, the University of Hawaii expanded their 3,500-seat multipurpose athletics field on campus by adding 5,000 temporary seats. The Mountain West school enters its fourth season playing football at the Clarence T.C. Ching Athletics Complex while it waits for the state of Hawaii to resolve financing issues tied to building a bigger stadium to replace aging Aloha Stadium in Honolulu.

Other schools, such as Virginia and Baylor, have installed temporary suites at their college football venues to meet the growing demand for premium hospitality among alumni and donors.

Baylor’s three 50-person suites, new for the 2024 season, are situated in the south end zone of McLane Stadium, tucked under the videoboard. They’re contained within a clear-span tent structure, equipped with tinted glass walls and a charcoal powder-coated frame to help keep premium patrons cool and dry in the Texas heat.

All five schools have rental deals with InProduction, whose history, dating to Seating Solutions, the firm it acquired in 2019, includes providing temporary seating for Super Bowl, Final Four, the Waste Management Phoenix Open, a PGA event, and the Miami Open, an ATP tournament where Hard Rock Stadium is converted into a professional tennis complex.

Apart from sports, InProduction’s clients include multi-day music festivals Lollapalooza and Austin City Limits, said Jason Tedrow, InProductions’ president and CEO.

For college football alone, the temporary builds have evolved into major projects in scope and cost. Some schools use temporary seating structures to increase capacity for non-conference games against marquee opponents before removing them for the conference schedule, he said.

“Northwestern is one of the most extensive uses of temporary structures in college football,” he said. “All schools are looking for ways to add capacity to meet the growing demand for tickets. There are ways to add more revenue through higher-end options.”

In the rapidly changing landscape of college sports, with student-athletes getting paid through Name, Image and Likeness marketing deals, and soon, revenue-sharing formulas, it’s more critical than ever for schools to pursue new avenues to drive revenue. Facilities are at the forefront of those issues, Tedrow confirmed.

In Evanston, Illinois, it was a simple, yet complicated issue of finding a home for Northwestern over two years while Ryan Field gets rebuilt from the ground up. The answer was expanding Martin Stadium, the school’s soccer and lacrosse facility elsewhere on campus, into a larger venue that could also hold football games.

The school made the project work on a tight site, and in the process, providing spectacular views of Lake Michigan and the city of Chicago skyline. The sporting public concurred. Northwestern Medicine Field received rave reviews from fans and media after the opening game, when Northwestern beat Miami of Ohio 13-6.

The temporary setup has amenities on its own. There are 16 open-air suites, plus all-inclusive club seats and field-level loge boxes, offering a greater variety of premium options than Ryan Field had before it was torn down last spring, Barracato said.

In the south end, premium seats, apart from suites, sell for $550 to $1,300 a person per game, according to Northwestern football’s seating map for the 2024 season.

Levy runs Northwestern sports concessions and uses portable stands, tents and food trucks to sell food and drink and created a beer garden for adult beverages.

Parking is distributed among several existing lots on campus, two parking garages and some city lots, with shuttle buses transporting fans to the lakefront site.

Northwestern made the decision to go with a temporary stadium after the athletic department was unable to book all seven home games at other Chicago venues.

Barracato said Soldier Field was not an option, due primarily to the Chicago Bears, the stadium’s NFL tenant, having a clause in their agreement with the Chicago Park District, their landlord, that no other events can take place within a five-day window after a Bears game.

In the end, Northwestern was able to schedule its final two home games in November at Wrigley Field against Ohio State and Illinois, its archival. The first five games take place at the temporary stadium.

The timing was difficult, considering Northwestern was dealing with Ryan Field redevelopment approvals with the city of Evanston at the same time the school was trying to find a temporary home.

“We didn’t know if the (Ryan Field reconstruction) was going to move forward and if we were going to run into some other challenges that we had no control over,” Barracato said.

“There were so many dynamics to work out, and at what point do we have enough information to make an informed decision whether or not we had to take the show on the road or pull something off on campus?” she said. “That was inclusive of thinking through our Olympic sports, making sure that we weren’t inconveniencing them. We have tremendous programs with field hockey, soccer and a national champion lacrosse team, and had to ensure their events could still be played in the same footprint.”

The fact that Northwestern’s football team overcame overcame a hazing scandal — which led to the firing of Pat Fitzgerald, the school’s all-time winningest coach — to post an 8-5 record last season and a win over Utah in the Las Vegas Bowl, also played a role in finding an on-campus solution.

Building a temporary stadium in Evanston was a way to maintain that momentum, key supporters told school officials, in part to provide Northwestern students, faculty and alumni the convenience of continuing to attend football games on campus, Barracato said.

On April 10, school officials announced the temporary stadium solution for the 2024 and 2025 seasons.

Barracato sees the temporary seating trend in college football continuing to grow due to the flexibility factor, coupled with the high cost for capital projects in general as schools search for less expensive options to improve stadiums.

“For us, it worked out that (InProduction) was able to customize the structure they built for us in a tight footprint in a short period of time,” she said. “We’re unique for what we built, but are not the only ones doing something like this. We also created a new tailgate experience, with the lake next to you in the third-largest media market; the city is behind you and the football stadium in front of you. We’re encouraging everyone (including fans without tickets) to participate.”