Stadium/Arena Fun Facts

[bucknut40]

I think I once heard that the Seahawks stadium is the only US major league stadium/arena to have a soft drink contract with someone other than Coke or Pepsi (Jones?)

Consol Energy Center has Snapple/7up/RC Cola

Not that rare. Soldier Field is now a Snapple/7Up building as will be the new SJ Earthquakes stadium and other major venues. And in Texas, most venues have Dr. Pepper as a drink while pouring rights are with Coke/Pepsi as the official "cola". They sign Dr. Pepper as a non-cola, yet will allow Sprite/Sierra Mist to be the lemon-lime soft drink.

Dr. Pepper is different by city...depends on which local bottling company they contract

[RyanB06]

The video boards on the center-hung scoreboard at the XL Center in Hartford are recycled from the Staples Center in LA.

[DelayedPenalty]

The population of Ann Arbor, MI nearly doubles during Michigan football home games.

Ann Arbor population = 114,925 (2011)

Michigan Stadium attendance = 114,804 (UM vs. ND, 9/10/11)

[charger77]

Joe Louis Arena:

Holds the unusual distinction of being the closest major American arena to a foreign country, as it is located across the Detroit River from Windsor Ontario.

I also believe that they forgot to install press boxes and they had to be put in after completion.

[Breakwood]

Philly is the only city where all four pro sports teams play within half a mile/kilometer of each other

Toronto's 4 'major' sports teams play within approximately a kilometre of eachother as well.

[BlueSky]

The Superdome had in-stadium replay capability when it opened in 1975. The screens hung from the roof on a structure that could be raised out of the way for baseball and so on. Ray Guy of the Raiders hit the screens with a punt in the '76 Pro Bowl. Pretty awesome considering the screens were 9 stories above the field. They called "no play" and had the AFC punt again - the first and only "do over" I've ever seen in an NFL game.

The screens were projection btw - the projectors were in mini-tunnels on the upper deck. The quality was awful compared to today but that was outweighed by the ability to see replays at the game. In this pic the between-plays logo display is on the screen: a gold background with a Saints helmet in a circle. Note also the ridiculous distance between the field and the lower level seats. This must have been taken very early on because it was always a fair distance to the field but they had temporary collapsible bleachers that usually covered at least part of the bare area shown here. With the recent refurbishments they rebuilt the whole lower level and now have permanent seating all the way to near the field.

Temp lower level seats are visible in this 2004 pic. Hard to read the scoreboard but the Saints were up 2-0.

Not sure if it's the only stadium to have this honor but the Superdome was also the subject of a Jim Beam collectible whiskey bottle. The logo on top is the original one used back in the '70s. I still have mine of course.

Finally, it surely must be the only stadium in the country that regularly plays host to the tail end of a Mardi Gras parade - floats, bands, marchers, parade-goers and all.

[B-Rich]

Blue Sky:

The sideline seats in the Superdome were never "temporary"; they were movable, on tracks that slid them back and forth. In that 1st pic, the sideline seats are pushed back into the "widened" setting, which was the same used for the Dome's baseball set-up. The widened set-up was often used for large-scale football games beacuse it added seats (I remember it was done for the 2003 BCS Championship). However, it really screwed up sight lines for those in the Plaza (lowest) level as they were so far from the field. IIRC, in Dave Dixon's book, when the Saints first started playing in the dome they used the widened setting as it alowed them to sell more seats (over Dome visionary Dixon's objections) but soon moved back to the regular football configuration. The diagram below shows it in the "regular" football configuration, similar to what is seen in your second shot:

By the way, between the area marked "concourse" and "exhibit" was actually a series of hanging bridges at each aisle linking the movable seats to the permanent concourse (shown on the right). When pushed back into the baseball or expanded seating mode, the bridges were pulled up and the movable seats were located directly adjacenty to the concourses. Of course all that's gone now, changed with the recent renovations, the concourses are larger and there are "bunker clubs" in that area marked as "exhibit"

[BlueSky]

You're right - I meant movable, not temporary. I remember the bridges very well from sitting down in the plaza section from time to time. But how is it that seats were added by retracting the movable sections? That seems counter-intuitive.

As a not-so-fun fact, one year I went to Saints-Falcons here in the Georgia Dome and took a date. I paid good money for lower-level seats and we got there to find our "seats" were two metal folding chairs set up in an area marked off for wheelchairs. If the wheelchair spots weren't sold they set up the folding chairs and sold the spots as regular seats. That's fine but they should have to tell you up front.

[njmeadowlanders]

The population of Ann Arbor, MI nearly doubles during Michigan football home games.

Ann Arbor population = 114,925 (2011)

Michigan Stadium attendance = 114,804 (UM vs. ND, 9/10/11)

I see what you're going for...but how many of those Ann Arbor residents attend the games and thus would be counted twice?

I DO know that on gamedays, State College IS the 3rd most populated place in Pennsylvania (if you count all the folks who DON'T have tickets that still live there).

[njmeadowlanders]

As for antiquated video boards, Shea Stadium (TM Tank) had this when it opened in 1964:

It had the picture of the player batting, could show "instant" replays, and during rain delays it showed movies. They actually found the old projector when they tore everything down in 2008 rotting and rusting away after it had been forgotten and covered up with advertising a few decades prior.

Also note the lower right corner: "Colts Here, Tues. 8 PM"

[Funky Bunky]

The population of Ann Arbor, MI nearly doubles during Michigan football home games.

Ann Arbor population = 114,925 (2011)

Michigan Stadium attendance = 114,804 (UM vs. ND, 9/10/11)

Not exactly. I'm sure a good amount of Ann Arbor residents attend the games.

[Funky Bunky]

Also note the lower right corner: "Colts Here, Tues. 8 PM"

What does that mean? (Colt .45s?)

[njmeadowlanders]

Also note the lower right corner: "Colts Here, Tues. 8 PM"

What does that mean? (Colt .45s?)

Yep.

[Cosmic]

Joe Louis Arena:

Holds the unusual distinction of being the closest major American arena to a foreign country, as it is located across the Detroit River from Windsor Ontario.

I also believe that they forgot to install press boxes and they had to be put in after completion.

Well you guys are bad neighbors, then. The Sabres are the only team in the NHL (I assume in major sports) that plays the Canadian and American national anthems before every game. Their arena is a whole two miles from Canada.

[cmm]

So I was at the Rangers/Montreal game tonight and heading up to our seats were two Montreal fans in front of us. They were wondering what the heck was going on with all the escalators and where on earth they were going. I explained to them that the arena floor is actually on the fifth floor of the building itself (meaning when you're watching a Ranger or Knick game on TV or whatever, that's being played 5 stories above the street), that the lower concourse is on the sixth floor, and that the upper concourse, brand new for this season, is now on the 8th story of the building. The first four are the theater (where the NFL draft used to be held as well as countless other plays/concerts/etc.) so to get up to your seats you need to ascend all those escalator banks. They were in awe of that.

So what non-obvious little fun facts do other arenas & stadiums have that aren't possibly well known?

Nifty diagram that demonstrates this, though I don't think the bowling center is still there

(source: http://www.newsteelc...-new-york-city/)

[tBBP]

I'd have to go back and check this, but I'm just about positive that the playing court in the old Market Square Arena (which as we all know no longer exists) was actually elevated directly above Market Street in downtown Indianapolis...not unlike the way the Artsgsrden of the Circle Centre Mall is elevated directly above the intersection of Washington & Illinois Streets. Also, fun factoid: the arena was designed by college students...in an architecture program up at Ball State. I wanna say that Market Street in those days also ended pretty much right at the arena. Don't ask me why I remember all this, though.

(Bonus fun fact: the Circle Centre Mall itself is built into parts of four different buildings that all corner that same aforementioned intersection, all linked by said Artsgarden—and yeah that's how they spell it too. Don't ask me why.)

[Joshawaggie]

Wow, I had no idea Madison square garden was like that. Just never really thought of it.

[zpqmaowl]

Well you guys are bad neighbors, then. The Sabres are the only team in the NHL (I assume in major sports) that plays the Canadian and American national anthems before every game. Their arena is a whole two miles from Canada.

Toronto Blue Jays, out of necessity because every game they play is against an American team.

[Needschat]

Joe Louis Arena:

Holds the unusual distinction of being the closest major American arena to a foreign country, as it is located across the Detroit River from Windsor Ontario.

I also believe that they forgot to install press boxes and they had to be put in after completion.

Well you guys are bad neighbors, then. The Sabres are the only team in the NHL (I assume in major sports) that plays the Canadian and American national anthems before every game. Their arena is a whole two miles from Canada.

Not really. Fonda Speedway, in upstate NY, has been doing both since I can remember (1969), as has many upstate minor venues.

[Cosmic]

Well you guys are bad neighbors, then. The Sabres are the only team in the NHL (I assume in major sports) that plays the Canadian and American national anthems before every game. Their arena is a whole two miles from Canada.

Toronto Blue Jays, out of necessity because every game they play is against an American team.

And Raptors then, too? Rats... well... um... we do it out of love! OK, at least we have the NHL covered.