Nebraska Cornhuskers will open 2025 football season at Arrowhead Stadium. Here’s why
The Nebraska Cornhuskers will open the 2025 football season at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium.
The Chiefs announced the game between Nebraska and Cincinnati for Aug. 28. It will be the Bearcats’ home game, and the third time Nebraska will have played at Arrowhead.
The game was originally part of a home-and-home series to begin in 2020, but the series was affected by COVID-19 and rescheduled for 2025 and 2033.
Next season’s matchup originally had been planned for Lucas Oil Field in Indianapolis. But Cincinnati decided to move the game because it can make more money in Kansas City, Bearcats athletic director John Cunningham told The Cincinnati Inquirer.
“We weren’t looking to move it, didn’t want to move it from Indy, but got a cold call from Arrowhead and a group that was looking to put a game together,” Cunningham said. “We didn’t know if they could get us to where we needed to go financially, but they did. We feel like we can get close to doubling our revenues. In this day and age, business decisions have to be made and this was one we needed to make.”
Cunningham said Cincinnati could make up to $6 million from the game.
Arrowhead held its first college game in 1972, the year the stadium opened. But it became a regular host of major college football games in 1998, when Nebraska met Oklahoma State, a home game for the Cowboys that was switched for financial reasons. The game sold out with 79,555 in attendance.
Nearly two dozen major college games, and several more small college contests, have been played at Arrowhead since then, including four Kansas home games this season while the Jayhawks’ stadium was being renovated.
Arrowhead was the site for five Big 12 championship games, including 2006 when Nebraska fell to Oklahoma.