Stadium Central

Wake Forest football has enjoyed one of its best seasons ever in 2006, winning the ACC and earning a bid to the Orange Bowl. Their stadium, Groves Stadium, was filled past capacity for the season. Granted, this stadium is not the largest. With an official capacity of 31,500, it ranks 93rd in Division I-A in size and is the smallest stadium in a BCS conference. With the 2nd smallest student body in Division I-A, however (behind Rice), the attendance figures for the year are quite impressive.

Groves Stadium, Wake Forest University
Visual Appeal: 5
Fan Friendly: 8
Settings and Surroundings: 5
Quirks: 4
Blend of Classic and Modern: 4
Total: 26

Groves Stadium is comprised of two grandstands on each side of the field. This simple design is reminescent of some high school stadiums. Behind the South endzone, a nicely landscaped grassy hill provides seating for families and others looking for a casual seat for games. The Bridger Field house encloses the facility behind the North endzone, providing a rare intimacy for a stadium of this capacity. While the structure itself does not provide many interesting visual sights, the overall look of the stadium is distinctive, especially with the black and gold checkerboard on the Field House. Replacement of the grass field with artificial turf took place before the 2005 season.
The intimacy of the setting and the presence of the grassy hill make Groves Stadium a pleasant experience for fans. The stadium is situated off campus in the middle of parking lots and adjacent to Joel Colisseum, home of the Demon Deacon basketball teams. While this setting provides good tailgating, it does not allow the stadium to be well integrated into the Wake Forest campus.
As previously mentioned, this stadium is rather plain, and no significant quirks can be identified on the structure. The checkerboard pattern on Bridger Field House, however, makes a viewer on television immediately aware that the telecast is coming from Groves.
The stadium is a classic design without many modern amenities. This situation, though, is scheduled to change, as Wake Forest has plans to construct luxury suites at Groves. This step should help bring added revenue to the Wake athletic program and will provide comfortable surroundings for Wake's more well-to-do fans.
Overall, Groves Stadium does an excellent job of creating an intimate atmosphere considering the small size of the structure. While one may think that small stadiums are, by nature, intimate, the lack of stadium elements behind end zones often yields an openness that destroys the intimacy. Additions of suites will hopefully add some architectural interest to the stadium.

The San Francisco Bay Area seems to be a hotbed of stadium news in the past few months. Stanford opened a new football stadium in September, the 49ers announced plans to abandon Candlestick Point for a site near San Jose, and the Oakland A’s announced plans to build their new stadium in Fremont. Not to be outdone, the University of California is also planning renovations to their football stadium to include a new football training facility. The news on this plan (e.g., see article in the San Jose Mercury News) have been the numerous lawsuits filed to prevent the project from going forward. Reasons for the objections range from an environmental loss of rare trees to improper designs for an area that lies atop a fault line.

The NCAA has posted attendance figures for 2006 Division I-A games. In terms of average attendance, Michigan was tops in the nation at 110,026 per game, which is 2.4 % above capacity at Michigan Stadium. The top 10 in average attendance is as follows: Penn State, Tennessee, Ohio State, Georgia, LSU, Alabama, Southern California, Florida, and Texas. The 10 lowest attendance figures in Division I-A belonged to (from #110-#119): Florida International, Ball St., Rice, Eastern Michigan, Louisiana Tech, Idaho, Louisiana-Lafayette, Louisiana-Monroe, Utah St., and Florida Atlantic (with a per game average of 9182 fans).

According to these figures, the largest listed stadium capacities belong to:
1. Michigan (107501)
2. Penn St. (106537)
3. Tennessee (104079)
4. Ohio St. (101568)
5. Georgia (92746)
6. LSU (92400)
7. Alabama (92138)
8. Southern California (92000)
9. UCLA (91500)
10. Florida (88548)

The ten smallest stadiums are:
110. Buffalo (29013)
111. Northern Illinois (28000)
112. Toledo (26248)
113. Miami of Ohio (24286)
114. Ohio (24000)
115. Bowling Green (23724)
116. Ball St. (22500)
117. Florida Atlantic (20540)
118. Florida International (17000)
119. Idaho (16000)

Some may use the percentage of seats occupied as an indicator of the passion of a team's fanbase. The top teams in terms of percent of seats occupied were: Texas (111 %), Oregon, Nebraska, Ohio St., Wake Forest, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Michigan, Florida, and Tennessee. The bottom ten in terms of percent of stadium capacity that was filled is: SMU, Louisiana Tech, La-Lafayette, La-Monroe, Florida Atlantic, Utah St., UAB, Tulane, Temple, and Rice. The teams at the bottom of this list suffer from the fact that they have very large stadiums, with Rice Stadium having a capacity of 70000 and Tulane and Temple playing in the homes of NFL teams.

Plans for two new stadiums were unveiled in the past week. The Dallas Cowboys set up an impressive website to display plans for the new Texas Stadium. Quite an impressive looking stadium to house the Cowboys. The stadium tries to keep some of the key aspects of the current Texas Stadium, namely the hole in the roof and the Ring of Honor, but adds many seats and creates an architectural marvel. A retractable roof will cover the hole in the roof when needed, and capacity will be about 80,000, with the ability to increase to 100,000 with temporary seating. One of the more interesting aspects of the proposed stadium is a 60 yard videoboard that will hang over the playing field, providing video between the 20 yard lines. Fans in end zone seats will also have videoboards facing them.

The Minnesota Twins also unveiled preliminary plans for their downtown baseball stadium. The stadium is slated to be a cozy venue, seating about 40,000. Only about 15% of the design is completed, so these plans are subject to change.

As the college football season winds down, plans are emerging for renovations to existing stadiums while other plans continue for new stadiums for a number of teams. Among Division I-A teams, new stadiums are being constructed for the University of Minnesota and for the University of Central Florida. Both schools currently play their college football games at off-campus sites, with the Golden Golphers playing in the Metrodome and the UCF Knights playing in the Florida Citrus Bowl. The new stadiums will bring the action back onto campus for both of these schools. Minnesota will play their games in the great outdoors in the 50,000 seat TCF Bank Stadium, which is scheduled to open for the 2009 season. UCF's games will take place in Bright House Networks Stadium, a 45,000 seat stadium scheduled to open in Fall 2007.