US teams in CFL field sizes

[smith03]

I am trying to get a list of the various modifications to the CFL standard field that was used by the US base teams from 1993-95

Baltimore

Birmingham

Memphis

Shreveport

Las Vegas

Sacramento/San Antonio

Where any of them a full CFL size field?

[pianoknight]

Pretty sure Las Vegas was NOT. I read an article on them a while back saying how the team's owners were so cheap they refused to build a full-size practice field. I believe one of their coaches also hired cheerleaders to specific distract the opposing bench.

Everything that I've heard about CFL: Vegas was a giant clusterfart.

[DaytonBlue]

Memphis was definitely a smaller field. The Liberty Bowl field is surrounded by walls pretty close to the field.

[walby2]

San Antonio was definitely a full-sized field. I recall hearing that the Alamodome was actually built to handle a CFL-sized field.

Memphis was definitely not full-sized. I think the endzones were something like 7 yards deep along the sideline and then bowed out following the curve of the stadium wall to something like 15 yards. I think Memphis was the only field that wasn't even close to being CFL sized. I remember a lot of coaches were griping about the injury potential of having tiny sidelines there.

As for the rest? I think Baltimore, Sacramento, Birmingham and Shreveport were either full size or very close. I seem to recall that Las Vegas was also pretty close if it wasn't actually regulation size - you could clearly see where they had modified Sam Boyd Stadium to make the field bigger.

The likeliest way to figure it out for sure is to watch Youtube clips of CFL games in the US.

[dfwabel]

Memphis was definitely a smaller field. The Liberty Bowl field is surrounded by walls pretty close to the field.

Memphis had the correct width, but not the correct length. Endzones were only 14 yards deep and what the Baltimore Sun called, "half pentagons".

Sacramento's Hornet Stadium has a track surrounding it, so its field was like that in Edmonton.

IIRC, Baltimore was a full field as the city and state put $2M into Memorial Stadium when they first got the team.

[walby2]

^ Yes, that's right re: Sacramento. I believe that a standard IAAF-style track with a Canadian football field in it means that the back corners of the endzones will be clipped like this:

The effect would have been a bit more pronounced pre-1983 when Canadian football fields were 25 yards deep instead of 20.

I also recall that in addition to Baltimore's renovations, Shreveport also sank a lot of money into revamping Independence Stadium to accommodate a CFL field. I'm not sure if it was 100% regulation size, though.

I believe that Legion Field was able to handle a CFL sized field with ease, but again that memory is a little foggy. Really Memphis was the only atrocity of a field that I can recall...

[smith03]

thanks for the help I did check youtube and it appeared that all the fields were at least regular cfl size from goal line to goal line and they all looked wide enough (althought that is hard to tell) weird how Memphis had astro turf and regular grass. it appear that if the fields were short it was in the end zones

[illwauk]

Skip to 1:25 for a good look at the half pentagons.

[Stampman]

There are staiudm in the CFL now that have the corners clipped for a track...

I say go to a 15 yard endzone and they should all be able to do it.