If a Wrigley Field bowl game is to happen, it won’t be coming along until 2021, according to Chicago Cubs President Crane Kenney. Many have called 2010’s Wrigleyville Classic, in which Illinois defeated Northwestern 48-27, the first bowl game ever held at Wrigley Field.
Given how that game is still best remembered today for a serious logistical failing, it’s much more flattering to call that contest a bowl game dress rehearsal. There’s going to be a lot of wagering on the bowls this football season, so if you’re looking to do some sports betting NZ, then check out the website linked in this sentence.
Getting back to Wrigley Field that November afternoon in 2010, we saw both offenses drives toward Wrigley’s west end zone due to safety concerns in the east end zone. You had barely a foot or two to work with in wiggle room near the right-field wall.
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A Tuesday news conference at Wrigley featuring NU coach Pat Fitzgerald, athletic director Jim Phillips and Kenney provided details of the game, with the Cubs Chief describing how the 1060 Project (the Wrigley Field renovations) includes removable seats down the third-base line, and thus allows for a full football field fit. Teams can go both ways now.
It was revealed in early 2017 that the Cubs are indeed working on getting a bowl game to Clark & Addison. At the team we even created a list of potential bowl game names and sponsorships.
So how it is coming along?
“We’re talking to a variety of conferences that have expressed interest in our hosting a bowl game, said Kenney in an interview with The Sports Bank and one other reporter.
“(It’s) a little early to tell whether those will actually pay off, and as you probably know the NCAA are kind of taking a look at all of their bowl games and I think in 2021 there’s the idea that they might redo some of them, and some of their destinations. So we’re in conversations with a number of our conferences.”
Kenney then extolled the virtues of a potential Wrigley Field bowl game.
“We think what happens in New York, the Pinstripe Bowl, is a great model for something here in Chicago,” he continued.
“If you think about Chicago as a destination for a bowl game, it’s not always that the weather’s perfect, although we’ve had some nice weather including in November of 2016 for our parade, but Chicago as a cultural destination, as a place for kids to come and beyond just sit at a beach and actually learn something about our country.”
“Maybe be entertained at a Broadway style show, obviously food and beveridge, hotel and commercial assets here are unparalleled. If New York is a good place for a bowl game why isn’t Chicago a great place, and obviously a storied venue like ours adds to it.”
Added Northwestern football coach Pat Fitzgerald:
“If they can play at Yankee Stadium they can play in here. There’s no reason why Chicago doesn’t have a bowl game, my hope is that it’s something that’s in their plans.”
Fitzgerald also told a group of reporters that Wrigley Field has hosted the second most football games of any current active stadium. The National Football League’s Chicago Bears played their home games at Clark & Addison from 1921 to 1970.
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Obviously, a whole lot is to be determined before a Wrigley Field bowl game happens, if it does, but the current chatter says the B1G conference would be involved in the arrangement.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net and TheBank.News, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, currently contributes regularly to WGN CLTV and the Tribune company’s blogging community Chicago Now.
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