Lanny and Sharon Martin Stadium (currently known as Northwestern Medicine Field at Martin Stadium for sponsorship reasons) is an outdoor stadium on the campus of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, United States. It is home to the Northwestern Wildcats soccer and lacrosse teams, the Chicago Stars FC of the National Women's Soccer League, and the Chicago Tempest of Women's Elite Rugby. From 2024 to 2026, the stadium was also the temporary home of the Northwestern Wildcats football team.
The venue was opened in 1997 along the shore of Lake Michigan on the northeast end of the campus, adjacent to several other university athletic facilities and the Kellogg Global Hub academic building. It is a component of the university's Lakefront Athletics and Recreation Complex, which also features Lakeside Field (a field hockey venue), Norris Aquatics Center, Henry Crown Sports Pavilion, Combe Tennis Center, Ryan Fieldhouse (indoor football practice facility), Walter Athletics Center, and the currently disused Hutcheson Field outdoor football practice field. The venue was enlarged in mid-2024 to accommodate the interim tenancy of the football program during the demolition of Ryan Field, which was replaced in 2026 by a new stadium at the site.
Original construction, early use
The venue traces back to the soccer and lacrosse field of the facility built in 1997 as part of what was originally known as the "Leonard B. Thomas Sports Complex". The two-field sports complex (also featuring the adjacent field hockey field) was constructed at a cost of $3.5 million on the north end of the university's main campus in Evanston, Illinois, in order to provide home fields for Northwestern University's soccer, lacrosse, and field hockey programs on the main campus. Soccer and lacrosse shared the venue, built as a grass sports field in the complex. Field hockey was given a separate dedicated venue designed to the particular specifications of field hockey. Previously, sports like soccer had played home games at Ryan Field football stadium, which had an oversized seating capacity for the needs of such sports.
The site of the venue has provided spectators with views of the adjacent Lake Michigan and distant views of the Chicago skyline. Prior to its 2016 renovation, the soccer and lacrosse field was referred to as "Lakeside Field", a name also used for the adjacent field hockey venue. It had a capacity of 2,000 spectators.
The venue was the site of the Big Ten men's soccer tournament in 1998, 2005, and 2012.
2016 renovation
Both the soccer and lacrosse field, as well as the adjacent field hockey facility, were renovated in 2016 as part of a renovation of the lakefront athletics complex that also included the addition of an outdoor practice field for the school's football program. The football practice field, named Chap and Ethel Hutcheson Field (also known as Hutcheson Field), was built just to the south of the renovated soccer facility along the lakefront, and was built to also be utilized by club sports teams in addition to the football program. The renovations of the lakefront fields was part of the university's "We Will" campaign of investment in its athletic facilities. The newly renovated soccer and lacrosse venue was renamed "Lanny and Sharon Martin Stadium" after J. Landis "Lanny" Martin (a trustee and alumnus of the university) and his wife Sharon Martin, who together had served as co-chairs of the campaign's fundraising efforts and had contributed $15 million to it.
HOK and 360 Architecture were the lead architects of the facilities renovation project. The renovations added lighting upgrades, and new video equipment. The renovated soccer and lacrosse venue continued to have a permanent capacity of 2,000 seated spectators, and featured a single small video board (located in its northeast corner). It reopened on March 8, 2016, with a women's lacrosse match against Marquette.
After its 2016 renovation, the stadium was the location of the Big Ten women's lacrosse tournament both in 2016 and 2024.
Temporary use as college football stadium (2024–2026)
On April 10, 2024, the university announced that a temporary facility would be constructed as part of the complex to serve as the football team's home stadium for the 2024 and 2025 seasons while a replacement for Ryan Field is built. During its use as an interim football stadium, the facility is known for sponsorship reasons as "Northwestern Medicine Field at Martin Stadium", with Northwestern Medicine signing a two-year exclusive naming rights partnership in August 2024 for the branding of the stadium. In addition to the school's football team, its soccer teams and lacrosse program continue to play at the venue.
Plans were that after the 2025 season, the stadium was to be significantly downsized with potential long-term enhancements made to benefit the sports teams that will continue to utilize the venue. However, this was extended, with the stadium hosting the first two home games of the 2026 football season.
Logistics Background and planning With Ryan Field demolished for the construction of a replacement stadium (New Ryan Field) at the same location, the football team needed to find a temporary venue to play for two seasons. The university quickly began demolition on their previous stadium soon after receiving approval to, so as to preempt allowing time for any further legal challenges that could delay the project's initiation. The start of demolition came prior to arrangements being made for where the team would play during construction.
Before settling on plans to use Martin Stadium, several venues in the Chicago region were looked at as options. These were assessed as presenting too far of commutes from the Evanston campus for athletes and student fans. One was SeatGeek Stadium, a stadium which had been originally built for Major League Soccer. SeatGeek featured adequate facilities to serve as a temporary home venue, and a larger capacity than the temporary setup that Martin Stadium offers. However, its distance from the university's Evanston campus (a 45 minute to hour drive, using highways) made it an unideal option. Soldier Field (the stadium of the NFL's Chicago Bears and the MLS's Chicago Fire FC) was considered, but presented scheduling concerns as the Bears' 2024 schedule had not yet been finalized and the Chicago Fire's games would also present further scheduling challenges. It was also judged as presenting too far a commute from the Evanston campus. Guaranteed Rate Field (home stadium of the MLB's Chicago White Sox) was considered to be overly-remote from Evanston. While closer, Wrigley Field (home of the MLB's Chicago Cubs) was also judged as being too far removed from campus to serve as a season-long home venue.
The football program's plans for a temporarily expanded Martin Stadium were found to be feasible for meeting the needs of gameday logistics and requirements for television broadcasts. These plans were cleared for action once the team received needed approvals from the NCAA, the Big Ten Conference, and the city of Evanston to play their games at the stadium. There was a limited timeframe in which the plans could be executed, with preparation beginning in early June 2024 and the first scheduled football home game at the venue taking place on August 31. As a result, the expanded seating of the venue was erected over the course of only approximately 60 days.
Head football coach David Braun and his family gave what was described to be "a major six-figure contribution" to the university to help fund the project of expanding Martin Stadium.
Seating and other aspects of the stadium The temporary enlargement of the venue to accommodate football games was overseen by InProduction, company which specializes in erecting temporary seating structures for sports events such as Formula 1 races and golf tournaments, and which had previously built temporary bleachers at Kidd Brewer Stadium (for Appalachian State Mountaineers football) and Clarence T. C. Ching Athletics Complex (for Hawaii Rainbow Warriors football).
Due to each sideline being space-confined, the sideline grandstands are more shallow in depth than the temporary endzone grandstands are. Parts of the temporary endzone grandstands sit atop of a former football practice field and a parking lot. The initial target capacity for the temporary venue was to hold somewhere around 15,000 spectators. However, when it opened for the 2024 season its official capacity was even lower, at only 12,023. Northwestern Athletics noted that there would be the ability to potentially enlarge the capacity for the 2026 season including by adding as many as 3,000 more seats to the venue by placing more seating in the stadium's corners and under its score boards.
The expansion of the venue included dismantling and rebuilding the existing grandstand structure on the west sideline of the field. This was done in order to add additional seating as well as a mezzanine level and press box on that side of the venue. The scale of what could be added on the west sideline was limited, due to spatial limitations created by the proximity of the neighboring Lakeside Field field hockey venue. Northwestern Athletics regarded any plan that would require to uproot its championship field hockey program from their own facility to be non-starter, thus the enlarged western grandstand could not be extended much further back than the existing grandstand extended. Most of the seating along the west sideline includes 2,500 bleacher-style bench seats. Above this is a 200-capacity premium mezzanine seating section that has been nicknamed a "loft level", featuring barstools and chair-backed seats for its ticketed spectators. The Northwestern home team bench is located along the west sideline.
A second sideline grandstand was added on the east sideline of the playing surface, the side of the venue which abuts the lake, and is the side in which the visiting team bench is located along. This grandstand contains 1,200 bleacher-style bench seats. The size of what could be constructed along the east sideline was confined by the limited amount of room between the playing surface and the lake. The east stands are very near to the lake, with their last row of seats being located roughly from the water.
The temporary south endzone grandstand contains both general admission and premium seating, and extends far further-back than the sidelines do. The south endzone has two suite levels, with a total of sixteen suites. It also features club seats, and a field-level premium loge seating section. With its many premium seats, the South grandstand generates the most revenue. Its first row is a field-level premium loge seating section that has twenty sets of four-seat tables (with cushioned seats) that are elevated only above the playing surface. Behind this are rows of general admission seats, beyond which there are several rows of cushioned premium club seating. Behind the club seating are club dining areas (which contain the all-inclusive dining offered to club section seatholders) and the premium suites. Each premium suite is open-air, and offers seating for either 11 or 14 spectators.
The 5,000 seat temporary north endzone grandstand features sections for marching band stands and the student sections of both Northwestern and visiting teams during football games. All seating in this section is bleacher-style bench seating. For the 2025 season, the home team football student section in this grandstand was shifted to the west end of the grandstand, situating Northwestern students closer to where players enter the stadium and closer to the sideline where Northwestern's bench is located.