The Buckeyes are playing at Wrigley Field this coming weekend, which prompted the question…
Everybody knows that one of the best parts of being a sports fan is debating and dissecting the most (and least) important questions in the sporting world with your friends. So, we’re bringing that to the pages of LGHL with our favorite head-to-head column: You’re Nuts.
In You’re Nuts, two LGHL staff members will take differing sides of one question and argue their opinions passionately. Then, in the end, it’s up to you to determine who’s right and who’s nuts.
This week’s topic: Which non-traditional venue would you like to see Ohio State play in?
Josh’s Take
The Buckeyes head to Chicago this weekend to play their last true road game of the season against the Northwestern Wildcats. However, whilst (hint) visiting the Windy City, Ohio State will not be making its customary pilgrimage to Ryan Field. Nor will Ryan Day’s squad be checking out the Wildcats’ temporary stadium along Lake Michigan because, well, I’m not real sure.
Instead, OSU will battle “Nerdwestern” at/inside of historic Wrigley Field, home of Major League Baseball’s Chicago Cubs. That’s right: football played in a baseball stadium. But we’re not talking old-school Candlestick Park, where the NFL’s San Francisco 49ers and MLB’s San Francisco Giants shared a multi-purpose stadium. No, Wrigley is a baseball-only stadium… Except for when Northwestern (apparently) wants to try and generate some additional revenue.
Frankly, I don’t understand spending nearly a billion dollars to renovate Ryan Field, creating a unique gameday experience on the water (!), and then hosting the Buckeyes at a baseball stadium. But who am I to argue with decision-makers at the “Harvard of the Midwest”? If nothing else, the move to Wrigley allows more than 12,000 fans (temp. Martin Stadium capacity) to attend this game featuring one of the biggest brands/names/teams in college football.
Complaints aside, I’ve attended a few games at Wrigley, and the experience is absolutely as fun and entertaining and unique as it appears to be in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. So seeing the Scarlet and Gray (somewhat) surrounded by Wrigley’s famed ivy should be sort of cool… Once. Then let’s get back to proper football stadiums.
Or should we? While I was busy lamenting the novelty act-ness of this weekend’s game at Wrigley, my partner Gene was letting his mind wander in a different direction. He seems more than willing to embrace the idea of Ohio State playing more one-offs at unique venues. And ya know what? After hearing his idea/contemplating his question for today’s edition of You’re Nuts, I think I might be coming around as well.
Gene’s question was (essentially): Excluding Big Ten/traditional road venues, bowl games, etc., where else would you like to see OSU play a football game? And, after thinking about it for a few minutes, I realized that my answer is/was directly influenced and inspired by back-to-back events that I watched take place in Europe on Sunday. Allow me to explain:
Because I’m a sicko, I woke up Sunday morning and watched the lowly Carolina Panthers play the, uh, even lowlier New York Giants (sorry, Gene) in Germany. Then, as soon as that game was over, I flipped over to the English Premier League soccer game between Arsenal and Chelsea. This is a typical Sunday morning for your boy, and I thought nothing of it until Gene posed his question.
But when asked about Ohio State playing a(nother) one-off roadie, I thought: How cool would it be for the Buckeyes to play “across the pond” — a la all these NFL teams we see throughout October and November? The NFL has developed quite a fanbase and following abroad, and perhaps OSU could do the same. Then it (my answer) hit me like a ton of bricks…
London, baby! More specifically, Stamford Bridge, baby! Stamford Bridge is the home of Chelsea (FC), my favorite soccer/football/fútbol club. It opened in 1877 and is steeped in history. So it would be perfect for hosting college football’s second – but first real – London/England game.
Oddly enough, the University of Richmond played Boston University in London in 1988, in front of an estimated 2,500 fans. However, I am not counting that as CFB’s first London game. Just can’t do it.
Ohio State playing at Stamford Bridge would be a real spectacle. A proper spectacle, if you will. And I would know, because I’ve (also) attended a game there. My wonderful, beautiful, amazing wife surprised me with a trip and tickets to a Chelsea home game for my birthday, and it was arguably the greatest in-person sports experience of my life. It was truly a one-of-one all-timer, so I can only imagine what it would be like to see or watch my favorite team play in what I think is the best venue I’ve ever been to.
Now, Stamford’s capacity is only around 40,000, but its ambiance would more than makeup for the smaller crowd. I think it would feel like 400,000 in that joint, especially if OSU faced an opponent of note. But not Michigan. Because The Game should always be played in Columbus or Ann Arbor.
So there ya have it, Gene. Give me Buckeye football in a different type of football stadium.
Gene’s Take
For starters, let me say that I despise the typical ‘neutral site’ game. Much like the NFL itself, these cavernous professional football fields lack any sort of character or mystique. College football is too fun a sport to be played inside these soulless stadiums that feel like they were built more to please the big advertisers and rich suite owners rather than for the average fan. It is a disservice to the pageantry of the game to play some of the season’s biggest matchups, including conference title games and the College Football Playoff, in these joyless buildings.
That being said, I do think it is at least somewhat interesting for football games to be played in venues that aren’t typically built for football. Much like the NHL’s Winter Classic, which is an even bigger break from the norms as it moves hockey from its typical indoor arenas to the elements of the outdoors, the idea of a football game being played on a baseball field or in a soccer stadium provides that extra bit of novelty that makes it more acceptable than your typical neutral site.
Of course, this doesn’t hit the same when the field is specifically built to be shared by both football and baseball, like how the Oakland Coliseum used to be occupied by both the Raiders and the A’s. Seeing the dirt of the baseball diamond during a football game is a unique and interesting thing to see at first, but after a while, it becomes a bit silly. Nowadays, it is common for these baseball fields to be entirely covered with turf when a football team is being played, which makes far more sense.
There are a handful of college football games each year that are played in baseball stadiums. The vast majority of these are bowl games, like the Fenway Bowl at the home of the Boston Red Sox and the Pinstripe Bowl at Yankee Stadium. During the last bowl season, we also saw the Guaranteed Rate Bowl played at Chase Field (Arizona Diamondbacks) and the Holiday Bowl played at Petco Park (San Diego Padres). This matchup between Ohio State and Northwestern at Wrigley Field is a rare regular season contest away from either a college campus or an NFL stadium.
If I were to choose a fun new venue for Ohio State to play a neutral site game, one obvious idea comes to mind, and it is something that has been done before — albeit not for a while — and is also being used in the near future by Major League Baseball.
That location is Bristol Motor Speedway. The racetrack, which opened in 1961, hosts a variety of different auto-racing events, including a pair of annual NASCAR Cup Series events in the Southeastern 500 and the Volunteer 500. It has also served the local community in a multitude of ways over the years, including as an evacuation center during bad hurricane seasons as well as a COVID-19 vaccine distribution center during the height of the pandemic.
Bristol has also been used to support a variety of sporting events in the past, including football. In 1961, the track hosted an NFL exhibition game between the Washington Redskins and Philadelphia Eagles, and it hosted its first-ever college football game in 2016 in the Battle of Bristol between Tennessee and Virginia Tech. In 2025, the venue will also feature its first-ever baseball game between the Atlanta Braves and the Cincinnati Reds, which will also be the first regular season Major League Baseball game played in Tennessee.
No college teams have returned to Bristol Motor Speedway since one week after the Battle of Bristol in 2016, when East Tennessee and Western Carolina played an FCS game there. I think the idea of a football game being played on the infield of a race track is a really cool idea and is visually appealing. It is also more than large enough to host massive crowds, as Bristol’s capacity is listed at 146,000 — although not all of those seats would be viable to use for football viewing.
More often than not, I want to see college football games played on college campuses. However, if Ohio State has to play at a neutral site, I wouldn’t mind seeing them show off some of that speed in a place that is quite literally built for it.