Notre Dame, Wisconsin fans look forward to filling Lambeau Field in 2020

GREEN BAY – You can now add playing on the same field to the similarities and connections between the Green Bay Packers and the Notre Dame Fighting Irish. 

Notre Dame will host the Wisconsin Badgers at Lambeau Field on Oct. 3, 2020. The long anticipated announcement was made Monday in Chicago. The game is part of Notre Dame's neutral-site Shamrock Series, which means it will be the home team. The Irish will play Wisconsin again on Sept. 25, 2021, at Soldier Field in Chicago.

It will be the second major-college football game at Lambeau Field, after last year's successful Wisconsin-LSU clash, which the Badgers won 16-14. 

LSU fans blanketed Northeastern Wisconsin for days before the game, spending freely and widely. The economic impact was estimated at more than $15 million.  

Notre Dame fans, not to mention Badger fans, are expected to be as numerous. Maybe more so. Like Packers fans, Notre Dame fans travel well, said Aaron Osland of Neenah, president of the Notre Dame Club of Northeastern Wisconsin.

"There is a huge fan base in Chicago. There is going to be no shortage of Notre Dame fans floating around," Osland said. 

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As home team, Notre Dame will control tickets in the bowl. The Packers will make premium seat tickets available to its ticket holders first, as well as retain some tickets for internal use, similar to the Wisconsin-LSU arrangement.

Notre Dame Athletic Director Jack Swarbrick said bowl tickets will be split 50/50, but he expects a robust secondary market.

"It’s another iconic university football team. I think it will create quite a buzz. It already has," said Brad Toll, president and CEO of the Greater Green Bay Convention and Visitors Bureau. "Badger alumni and Notre Dame alumni will say 'we’ve got to go to that game.'"

Notre Dame, which has alumni across the nation, institutionalized neutral-site games into its Shamrock Series, which began in 2009, when the first game was played in San Antonio. The series then went to New York, Washington, D.C., Chicago, Dallas and Indianapolis, according to the university's website. Notre Dame played at Fenway Park in Boston in 2015 and at Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas, in 2016. No Shamrock Series game is scheduled for 2017.

"Locally, we are very excited about them coming to our little corner of the world," Osland said. "There is a lot of history between the Packers, Green Bay and Notre Dame." 

Green Bay Packers founder Curly Lambeau played one season at Notre Dame, and, just before the Packers joined the NFL in 1922, the team was suspended on suspicion it used Notre Dame players in its games.

Notre Dame alumni who played for the Packers — legally — over the years included Pro Football Hall of Famer Paul Hornung, Dorsey Levens, Mike McCoy, Bob Skoglund and Aaron Taylor. 

"The game day experience at Notre Dame and Green Bay are eerily similar," Osland said. "The Packers games have a college atmosphere to them. It's the closest to college I've found."

The UW-LSU game was believed to have had an impact equal to or greater than a Packers home game, boosted by LSU fans arriving in large numbers as early as Thursday and renting meeting and convention spaces, contracting with local companies for catering and generally spending money everywhere.

Because the Notre Dame game will be in October, it might not be as conducive to fans taking most of a week off to come to Green Bay, as they did over Labor Day weekend last year. On the other hand, many Notre Dame fans are closer to Green Bay than were LSU fans. 

"I would expect a better weekend than LSU weekend," Osland said. 

The Packers paid Wisconsin $3 million and LSU $2.5 million for the game. The Packers covered game expenses. In return, they got all ticket money, parking, concessions, sponsorship and merchandising revenue. Carmex Laboratories Inc. sponsored Wisconsin-LSU, which was broadcast on ESPN.

The Packers declined Monday to disclose financial arrangements for Wisconsin-Notre Dame.

There will be no outside sponsor of Wisconsin-Notre Dame. The game will be broadcast on NBC as part of Notre Dame's ongoing relationship with that network.

Wisconsin-LSU was the first major college football game to be played at the stadium, which will be 60 years old on Sept. 29.

Wisconsin may return to Lambeau Field after 2020, or the Packers might find other teams.

"We will continue to look into games. We won't be doing it every year," said Wisconsin Athletic Director Barry Alvarez, who was Notre Dame's defensive coordinator before coming to Wisconsin in 1990.  

The Packers' goal is to have one major non-Packers-football event at Lambeau Field every year, though none will be scheduled in 2018, when the team resurfaces the football field. 

"We'll have concerts periodically," said Packers President and CEO Mark Murphy. "If we can have a college football game every few years, we'll do that. We are certainly looking at the different options that might be available for us. I think the success we had with the LSU game is helpful."

The weekend before the Wisconsin-Notre Dame game, Whistling Straits in Kohler will host the Ryder Cup golf tournament, an event that is expected to fill hotel rooms as far north as Green Bay, Toll said. In addition, Whistling Straits owner Kohler Co. owns Lodge Kohler in the Packers' Titletown District. 

"It's going to be a great time of year for sports fans in Wisconsin," Murphy said.