Notre Dame-Wisconsin matchups to be played at Lambeau Field, Soldier Field

CHICAGO -- Notre Dame and Wisconsin on Monday announced future games to be played at Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wisconsin, and Chicago's Soldier Field, which will mark the first meetings between the schools since a three-game series from 1962 to 1964.

The Fighting Irish and Badgers will play Oct. 2, 2020, at Lambeau Field and Sept. 25, 2021, at Soldier Field. Ticket distribution and revenue will be split evenly.

Notre Dame has designated both games as part of its annual Shamrock Series. NBC will broadcast the 2020 game at Lambeau, and the Big Ten controls the television rights to the 2021 game in Chicago.

"These are two schools with a host of reasons to play each other," Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick said during a news conference at the Under Armour Brand House. "We will play in two iconic venues that will be a great experience for our students."

Among the connections between the schools is Wisconsin athletic director Barry Alvarez, who served as a Notre Dame assistant from 1987 to 1989 before taking the top job at Wisconsin. Green Bay Packers president Mark Murphy said Alvarez was the driving force behind the series, which took several years to finalize.

There are several Notre Dame-Packers links, including Curly Lambeau, who played briefly for the Irish before founding the Packers.

Wisconsin opened the 2016 season against LSU at Lambeau Field, which Alvarez described to ESPN as a "Packers game on steroids." The LSU-Wisconsin game marked the first major college contest at Lambeau and the first college game since Fordham and St. Norbert in 1983.

Murphy said the Packers would like to do one non-NFL event per year at Lambeau, whether it's a concert or a college game.

"The majority of our team is from the state of Wisconsin," Alvarez said. "They grew up watching the Packers and watching the Badgers. Every Sunday, they watched the Packers. ... To play a game there, the atmosphere turned into a college atmosphere, the excitement of it and just the electricity around Green Bay and in the stadium was truly special for our athletes."

Notre Dame has played 12 games at Soldier Field, most recently against Miami in 2012. The year before, Wisconsin played Northern Illinois at Soldier Field, designated as the visiting team.

The Wisconsin series gives Notre Dame at least one Big Ten opponent every season for the foreseeable future. Notre Dame faces Michigan State this season, Michigan and Northwestern in 2018, Michigan in 2019 and both Wisconsin and Purdue in 2020 and 2021.

"We want annually to have a Big Ten opponent on our schedule," Swarbrick said. "It's important to us. It's a premier conference, obviously, and we attempt to create a body of work to make a case for our inclusion in the College Football Playoff, we want to be able to have a marker, a game against the Big Ten, against the SEC. We will always have Pac-12 and ACC markers."